THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 

Mary  Randall 


'/,' ' 


w     J 


nap\ 


STUDIES    FROM    LIFE. 


BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF 

"TWO  MARRIAGES,"  "JOHN  HALIFAX,  GENTLEMAN,' 

"A  NOBLE  LIFE,"  "CHRISTIAN'S  MISTAKE," 

" OLIVE,"  "A  LIFE   FOR  A   LIFE," 

&c.,  &c.,  &c. 


ttfeto 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER   &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE.  - 


MISS  MULOCK'S  WORKS. 


ABOUT  MONEY  AND  OTHER  THINGS. 
12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

A  BRAVE  LADY.  Illustrated.  12mo,  Cloth, 
90  cents. 

A  FRENCH  COUNTRY  FAMILY.  Trans- 
lated. Illustrated.  12mo,  Cloth,  $1.60. 

AGATHA'S  HUSBAND.  8vo,  Paper,  35  cents ; 
19mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

A  HERO,  Ac.    12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

A  LEGACY  :  The  Life  and  Remains  of  John 
Martin.  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

A  LIFE  FOR  A  LIFE.  8vo,  Paper,  40  cents ; 
19mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

A  NOBLE  LIFE.     12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

AVILLION,  Ac.    8vo,  Paper,  60  cents. 

CHRISTIAN'S  MISTAKE.  12mo,  Cloth,  90 
cents. 

FAIR  FRANCE.     12rno,  Cloth,  $1.50. 

HANNAH.  Illustrated.  3vo,  Paper,  35  cents ; 
12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

HIS  LITTLE  MOTHER,  Ac.  12mo,  Cloth,  90 
cents ;  4to,  Paper,  10  cents. 

JOHN  HALIFAX,  GENTLEMAN.  8vo,  Pa- 
per, 50  cents ;  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents  ;  4to,  Pa- 
per, 15  cents. 

KING  ARTHUR.  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents  ;  Pa- 
per, 25  cents. 


MISS  TOMMY,  and  IN  A  HOUSE-BOAT. 
Illustrated.  1 2m o,  Cloth,  80  cents;  Paper, 
50  cents. 

MISTRESS  AND  MAID.  8vo,  Paper,  30  cents ; 
12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

MY  MOTHER  AND  I.  Illustrated.  8vo,  Pa- 
per,  40  cents ;  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

OLIVE.  8vo,  Paper,  35  cents ;  12mo,  Cloth,  Il- 
lustrated, 90  cents. 

PLAIN-SPEAKING.  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents; 
4to,  Paper,  15  cents. 

SERMONS  OUT  OF  CHURCH.  12mo,  Cloth, 


12mo, 


90  c 


nts. 


THE    HEAD    OF   THE    FAMILY. 

Cloth,  Illustrated,  90  cents. 
STUDIES  FROM  LIFE.  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 
THE   LAUREL  BUSH.     Illustrated.     12mo, 

Cloth,  90  cents. 
THE  OGILVIES.    8vo,  Paper,  S5  cents  ;  12mo, 

Cloth,  Illustrated,  90  cents. 
THE  UNKIND  WORD,Ac.  12mo,Cloth,90  cte. 
THE   WOMAN'S    KINGDOM.     Illustrated. 

8vo,  Paper,  60  cents  ;  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 
TWO  MARRIAGES.  12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 
YOUNG  MRS.  JARDINE.  ISmo,  Cloth,  90 

cents ;  4 to,  Paper,  10  cents. 


BOOKS  FOR  CHILDREN. 


FAIRY  BOOK.     12mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 

MOTHERLESS.  Translated.  Illustrated.  For 
Girls  in  their  Teens.  1 2mo,  Cloth,  $1 .50. 

SONGS  OF  OUR  YOUTH.  Poetry  and  Music. 
Square  4to,  Cloth,  $2.50. 

THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  BROWNIE.  Il- 
lustrated. Square  16mo,  Cloth,  90  cento. 

THE  LITTLE  LAME  PRINCE.  Illustrated. 
Square  16mo,  Cloth,  $1.00. 

OUR  YEAR.    Illustrated.    16mo,  Cloth,  $1.00. 


GIRLS'   BOOKS,  Written  or  Edited  by   th« 

Author  of  "  John  Halifax :" 
LITTLE  SUNSHINE'S  HOLIDAY.  16mo, 

Cloth,  90  cents. 
THE    COUSIN    FROM    INDIA.      16mo, 

Cloth,  90  cents. 
TWENTY   YEARS   AGO      16mo,  Cloth, 

90  eents. 

IS  IT  TRUE!    16mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 
AN  ONLY  SISTER.    16mo,  Cloth,  90  eta. 
MISS  MOORE.     16mo,  Cloth,  90  cents. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

|2T  Sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the  United  States  or  Canada,  on  receipt  ofprietk 


GIFT 


C8B7 


CONTENTS, 


OLD  STONES 9 

SILENCE  FOR  A  GENERATION 32 

GOING  OUT  TO  PLAY 47 

"WANT  SOMETHING  TO  READ" 67 

WAR-SPARKLES 87 

AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME 110 

POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN 126 

TRAVELING  COMPANIONS \ 152 

THROUGH  THE  POWDER-MILLS 165 

BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET 180 

LITERARY  GHOULS 197 

ABOUT  MOTIIERS-IN-LAW 217 

OUR  LOST  CAT 232 

MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD 246 

THE  MAN  OP  MEN 258 

LOST 279 


M854167 


STUDIES  FROM  LIFE, 


<8>U»  Stones. 

"  NONSENSE  !  Who  on  earth  would  take  such 
a  journey" — it  was  forty  miles  across  country,  or 
sixty  odd  if  you  went  round  by  rail — "  just  to  see 
a  heap  of  old  stones !" 

So  grumbled  our  host,,  whose  "bark  was  waur 
than  his  bite,"  who  always  said  the  unkindest 
things  and  did  the  kindest.  Of  course  we  never 
fretted  ourselves  about  the  matter;  we  knew  we 
should  go. 

It  had  been  the  dream  of  youth  to  us  all,  indulged 
hopelessly  for — well,  I  had  better  not  say  how  many 
years,  since,  though  to  the  youngest — now  our  mer- 
ry hostess,  and  mother  of  our  host's  three  boys — 
time  did  not  so  much  matter,  we  two  elders,  who 
had  not  made  quite  such  good  use  of  it,  might  pos- 
sibly be  sensitive  on  the  subject.  Time?  Pshaw! 
we  plucked  the  old  fellow  by  the  beard  and  laughed 
at  him,  all  three  of  us.  .  He  had  only  made  us  wiser, 
and  richer,  and  merrier ;  we  did  not  grudge  him  one 
A2 


10  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

year  out  of  the  many  that  had  slipped  away  since 
we  used  to  sit  in  short  frocks,  and  frilled  trowsers. 
and  long  plaited  tails  of  hair,  poring  over  Penny 
Magazines  and  juvenile  Tours  through  England, 
which  confirmed  us,  as  I  said,  in  the  longing  to 
see  Stonehenge,  of  all  places  in  the  world  —  our 
"  world,"  which  then,  in  wildest  dreams,  extended 
not  beyond  the  British  Islands. 

We  never  had  seen  it;  not  though,  since  then, 
some  of  us  had  gone  up  and  down  Europe  till  we 
had  come  to  talk  of  the  Alps  and  Italy  with  a 
hand-in-glove  familiarity  quite  appalling;  though 
to  others  the  "ends  of  the  world"  had  at  second- 
hand been  brought  so  close  that  the  marvelous 
Peter  Botte  Mountain,  about  which  we  drank  in  so 
many  (ahem !)  fabulosities  in  the  said  Penny  Maga- 
zine, and  Cape  Horn,  of  gloomy  horror,  and  the  de- 
licious Pacific  Islands,  on  which  we  so  desperately 
longed  to  be  cast  away  as  youthful  Eobinson  Cru- 
soes,  had  dwindled  into  everyday  things.  Yet  still, 
still  we  had  never  seen  Stonehenge. 

As  the  idea  was  started,  and  we  canvassed  it  over 
the  tea-table,  the  dream  of  our  girlhood  revived, 
with  all  the  delicious  mystery  and  ingenious  con- 
jectures that  attended  it,  and  the  wild  hope — struck 
out  of  the  infinite  belief  of  youth  in  every  thing, 
and,  above  all,  in  itself— that  if  we  only  once  got  a 
sight  of  it,  who  knew  but  that  we — actually  WE ! 
might  be  the  happy  individual  to  set  forever  at  rest, 


OLD   STONES.  11 

by  some  lucky  suggestion,  the  momentous  question, 
Who  built  Stonehenge  ? 

A  "  heap  of  old  stones !"  We  scouted  the  phrase 
with  even  youthful  indignation ;  we  protested  that 
it  had  been  the  desire  of  our  lives,  that  we  would 
any  of  us  cheerfully  travel  any  how,  any  when,  any 
where  to  see  Stonehenge.  Then,  like  wise  women, 
we  let  the  matter  rest ;  we  knew  we  should  go. 

Our  plan  germinated  a  day  or  so  in  wholesome  si- 
lence, till  we  saw  its  first  leaf  peering  above  ground 
in  the  shape  of  a  Bradshaw  which,  quite  par  hasard, 
our  host  was  apparently  studying. 

"Oh!"  observed  he — apropos  of  nothing.  "It 
would  take  a  long  day — a  very  long  day." 

"  What  would  ?"  somebody  said  hypocritically. 

"I  thought  you  wanted  to  see  Stonehenge?" 

We  smothered  our  joy ;  we  were  meek  over  our 
triumph ;  we  even — as  days  were  precious  to  the 
masculine  portion  of  the  household  —  acquiesced 
humbly  in  the  proposal  that  we  should  "  make  a 
long  day  of  it" — that  is  to  say,  from  six  A.M.  to 
about  twelve  P.M.,  including  a  journey  by  coach 
and  rail  of  about  110  miles,  if  even  by  those  slightly 
arduous  means  we  might  purchase  an  hour  or  two 
among  our  "  old  stones." 

Patience  prospered ;  resignation  won.  The  very 
next  day  we  four — three  womenkind,  on  whom,  as 
we  have  passed  the  season  when  we  care  to  be  the 
three  Graces,  I  may  as  well  bestow,  pro  tern.,  the 


12  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

names  of  the  three  Virtues,  Faith,  Hope,  and  Char- 
ity— under  escort  of  Hope's  husband — found  our- 
selves clattering  over  the  stones  of  our  little  town, 
which  within  two  hours  fully  informed  itself  of  our 
excursion  and  plans  in  all  particulars,  many  of  them 
quite  unknown  to  ourselves.  No  matter ;  we  were 
very  happy,  even  when  Fate,  according  to  her  cus- 
tom— a  wise  one,  doubtless — dashed  our  joys  with 
a  pelting  rain,  tore  us  from  post  traveling  and  from 
the  breezy  heaths,  redolent  for  miles  and  miles  of 
the  apricot-scented  gorse,  to  thrust  us  into  a  railway 
carriage,  where  we  had  our  choice  of  being  smoth- 
ered or  soaked. 

Still  no  matter;  not  though  we  had  to  make  a 
circumbendibus  which  would  occupy  the  whole  of 
the  afternoon,  and  land  us  in  Salisbury  just  time 
enough  to  go  to  bed  ;  not  though  the  delicious  drive 
across  country  was  put  an  end  to,  and  we  were  jolt- 
ed and  smothered,  hungry  and  wet  (likewise  dry, 
very !),  laboring  under  every  traveling  woe  except 
ill-humor.  As  we  laughed,  our  troubles  lightened ; 
and  when,  toward  dusk,  we  saw  westward  a  red 
streak  peering  through  the  dun  sky,  and  birds  be- 
gan to  sing  out  cheerily  in  the  green,  dripping  trees, 
we  gloried  in  all  our  conquered  disasters,  for  we 
said,  "It  is  sure  to  be  a  fine  day  to-morrow." 

And  when,  opening  the  carriage  window,  one  of 
us  heard,  through  the  stillness  of  the  rainy  twilight, 

"  The  faint  and  frail  Cathedral  chimes 
Fpeak  time  in  music'," 


OLD   STONES.  13 

we  felt,  we  knew,  that  we  were  near  Salisbury  ;  that 
to-morrow  we  should  see  Stonehenge. 

No  chance  of  the  Cathedral  that  night ;  but  we 
saw  above  the  houses  its  exquisitely  delicate  spire ; 
and  once  again,  as  we  sat  over  the  welcomest  of  tea- 
suppers  in  the  inn  parlor,  we  caught  the  chimes, 
11  faint  and  frail;"  and  Hope,  who  used  once  to  be 
the  most  romantic  of  us  all,  and  in  whom  even  mat- 
rimony had  not  quite  suppressed  that  amiable  weak- 
ness, took  out  boldly  her  pet  poem,  The  Angel  in  the 
House,  and  declared  her  intention  of  rising  at  some 
unearthly  hour  next  morning  to  hunt  out  the  dean's 
house,  where  it  is  supposed  the  "  angel"  abode  pre- 
vious to  being  caught  and  carried  away  to  the  au- 
thor's. She  would  find  it,  she  knew,  in  "Sarum 
Close :" 

"Red  brick  and  ashlar,  long  and  low, 

With  dormer  and  with  oriels  lit : 
Geranium,  lychnis,  rose,  array'd 

The  windows,  all  wide  open  thrown, 
And  some  one  in  the  study  play'd 

The  wedding-march  of  Mendelssohn." 

Gathering  all  this  admirable  evidence  for  identify- 
ing— nothing !  we  laid  our  plans,  took  one  peep  out 
on  the  street,  where  the  pavement  glittered,  shiny 
with  rain,  under  the  gas  lamps,  and  above  a  queer 
black  gable  out  peered  the  brightest,  softest  new 
moon — then  we  all  went  to  bed  as  merry  as  chil- 
dren. Out  upon  old  Time!  were  we  not  at  heart 


14  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

just  as  young  as  ever,  and  going  to  Stonehenge  to- 
morrow ? 

AND  WE  WENT.  I  beg  to  chronicle  this  in  capi- 
tals as  a  remarkable  corroboration  of  the  proverb, 
"  Wish  for  a  gown  o'  gowd,  and  ye'll  aye  get  a 
sleeve  o't ;"  and  to  show  that  people  do  sometimes 
gain  what  they  wish,  if  they  have  patience  to  wait 
for  it  twenty  years  or  so.  We  went. 

It  was  an  exquisite  morning ;  fresh  after  the  rain, 
breezy  and  bright,  with  clouds  scudding  now  and 
then  over  the  May  sun,  threatening  us  just  enough 
to  make  us  protest  that  we  didn't  care.  It  might 
rain  and  welcome  in  an  hour  or  two — but  we  should 
be  at  Stonehenge.  Even  if  we  saw  it — humiliating 
position ! — from  under  umbrellas,  see  it  we  should 
and  would. 

So  we  dashed  along  the  quiet  morning  street, 
where  the  respectable  inhabitants  of  Sarum  were 
just  breakfasting,  little  recking  of  insane  tourists, 
wild  over  their  familiar  "old  stones."  Even  our 
driver,  honest  man,  as  he  took  us  through  "the 
close  and  sultry  lane" — vide  Angel  in  the  House, 
which  we  again  referred  to— turned  round  once  or 
twice  with  a  patronizing  air  to  answer  topograph- 
ical questions,  and  then  cracked  his  whip  solemn- 
ly, as  if  proud  that  he  wasn't  so  foolish  as  some 
people. 

Foolish  indeed!  but  it  was  a  holy  intoxication, 
brought  on  by  the  fresh,  breezy,  dewy  light,  bath- 


OLD   STONES.  15 

ing  the  whole  spring-world.  How  beautiful  was 
that  world,  with  the  sky  full  of  larks  and  the  air 
of  hawthorn-scent,  with  acres  upon  acres  of  cham- 
paign land  green  with  growing  wheat,  waving  and 
shimmering  in  the  sun — a  sea  of  verdurous  plenty. 
How  strange,  like  a  bit  of  ancient  history  made 
visible,  looked  Old  Sarum — a  perfect  Eoman  camp, 
with  its  regular  lines  and  fosses  now  thick-sown 
with  trees,  amid  which,  for  centuries  back,  we  learn- 
ed, still  lurked  a  house  or  two — no  more. 

"  Yet  that  place,"  remarked  Hope's  husband,  with 
severe  modern  practicality — "that  place  actually, 
till  the  Eeform  Bill,  sent  two  members  to  Parlia- 
ment!" 

We  laughed,  and  pondered  how  much  the  world 
had  mended  since  the  times  of  the  Romano-Britons, 
and  so  drove  on,  to  a  perpetual  chorus  of  larks — a 
chorus  dropping  upon  us  from  the  white  clouds — 
who  sang  over  us  just  as  they  sang  over  the  heads 
of  those  grim  warriors  throwing  up  the  green  walls 
of  Old  Sarum. 

Salisbury  Plain.  Familiar  as  a  proverb  the  place 
is.  Of  a  bleak  spot  one  hears,  "  As  bare  as  Salis- 
bury Plain;"  of  being  shelterless  in  the  rain,  "Might 
as  well  have  been  out  on  Salisbury  Plain."  All  im- 
ages of  dreary  desolation  and  flat  uniformity  gath- 
ered around  it ;  and  one  thinks  of  that  celebrated 
hero  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  the  "  Shepherd 
of  Salisbury  Plain,"  with  a  mixture  of  sympathy 


16  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

and  veneration.     Yes,  we  were  now  on  Salisbury 
Plain. 

A  strange  place,  surely ;  not  flat,  as  we  had  ex- 
pected, but  rising  and  falling  in  long  low  waves  of 
land — inclosed  wheat-land  for  a  considerable  way, 
till  fences  and  cultivation  cease,  and  you  find  your- 
self in  the  midst  of  a  vast  expanse,  lying  bare  un- 
der the  sky,  as  far  as  eye  can  reach,  in  all  direc- 
tions— one  undulating  sea  of  intense  emerald  green. 
Nothing,  except  the  sea,  ever  gave  me  such  a  sense 
of  solitude,  stillness,  and  desolation,  quiet,  not  pain- 
ful :  nature's  desolation  is  never  painful.  You  hear 
no  birds,  for  there  are  no  trees  to  sing  in ;  nay,  the 
larks  have  ceased,  or  are  heard  indistinctly  far  away 
over  the  wheat -fields;  an  occasional  bee  alone 
comes  buzzing  over  the  short  turf,  the  flowers  of 
which,  dainty,  curious,  and  small,  are  chiefly  of  a 
scentless  kind,  such  as  saxifrage,  tiny  yellow  lotos, 
and  primrose-colored  hawkweed.  Now  and  then, 
every  mile  or  so,  you  see,  lying  at  anchor  in  a 
hollow,  or  steering  across  the  Plain  like  a  fleet  of 
white  sails  whose  course  you  can  track  for  miles, 
what  you  know  must  be  a  flock  of  sheep.  Or  you 
come  upon  them  close,  and  the  little  brown-faced 
shepherd  takes  off  his  cap  with  a  nod  and  a  smile, 
and  his  shaggy  dog  just  lifts  up  his  lazy  head  to 
look  at  you ;  then  you  leave  them  all,  flock,  shep- 
herd, and  dog,  to  a  solitude  which  seems  as  com- 
plete as  that  of  an  Arab  in  the  desert,  or  a  ship  far 
out  at  sea. 


OLD   STONES.  17 

And  this  is  Salisbury  Plain ;  and  in  its  centre  lies 
that  extraordinary  circle  of  stones  about  which,  let 
antiquaries  prate  as  they  will,  nobody  really  knows 
any  thing  whatever. 

As  we  ascended  and  descended  ridge  after  riclge 
of  the  waves  of  land,  we  all  stretched  anxious  eyes 
east,  west,  north,  and  south.  Who  would  be  the 
first  to  catch  sight  of  Stonehenge  ?  We  scorned  to 
inquire  of  the  driver  where  to  look ;  we  felt  sure 
we  should  recognize  it  at  once ;  but  on  we  went, 
and  ever  so  many  imaginary  "  old  stones"  did  our 
satirical  escort  point  out  to  our  eager  notice  as  the 
veritable  Stonehenge. 

At  last  he  said,  with  a  quiet  air  of  unquestionable 
superiority,  "That's  it:  there  are  your  old  stones." 

"Where?"  "Oh,  please,  where?"  "Yes,  where?" 
cried  in  different  and  yet  concurring  tones  Hope, 
Faith,  and  Charity,  the  latter  being  mild  even  in 
her  enthusiasm :  she  had  seen  Mont  Blanc  and  a 
few  other  trifles. 

"  There !" 

"Oh!"  "Ah!"  "Well!" 

I  grieve  to  confess  that  these  ejaculations  were — 
not  enthusiastic !  Did  ever  the  thing  attained  seem 
in  the  moment  of  winning  half  so  grand  as  when 
unattained,  possibly  unattainable?  Nay,  as  our 
poetical  friend  observes — not  too  politely — of  his 
"angel"  (the  book's  corner  peered  still  out  of 
Hope's  pocket) : 


18  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

"The  whole  world's  wealthiest  and  its  best, 

So  fiercely  follow'd,  seem'd,  when  found, 
Poor  in  its  need  to  be  possess'd — 
Poor  from  its  very  want  of  bound." 

Alas!  whether  from  the  vastness  of  the  Plain,  which 
made  the  gigantic  stones  seem  small  from  the  want 
of  something  to  compare  them  with,  or  whether 
youthful  imagination  had  like  "  vaulting  ambition 
o'erleaped  its  selle,"  and  fell  prone  by  the  side  of 
ordinary  and  possible  fact,  certain  it  is  that  nothing 
but  the  shame  and  dread  of  being  crowed  over  by 
superior  masculine  wisdom  prevented  our  confess- 
ing ourselves  disappointed  in  our  first  sight  of 
Stonehenge. 

But  afterward,  as  often  happens — and,  let  us  hope, 
happened  with  our  poet  and  his  "angel" — coming 
nearer,  its  grandeur  and  beauty  grew  upon  us,  till, 
by  the  time  our  horses  stopped  and  drew  up  under 
the  large  shadow  of  one  of  the  "  Druid  (?)  rocks," 
we  descended,  silenced  by  their  sublimity. 

It  has  been  described  scores  of  times  —  this  ex- 
traordinary circle,  or  rather  series  of  circles  one 
within  another,  varying  in  size,  from  the  outer 
stones,  which  are  all  of  silicious  sandstone,  appar- 
ently about  fifteen  feet  in  height  and  six  or  seven 
in  diameter,  to  the  inner  ones,  of  granite,  and  net 
beyond  the  size  of  a  man  ;  and  the  two  great  centre 
trilithons,  which  still  stand,  erect  and  uninjured, 
over  the  large  flat  stone  of  blue  lias  which  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  sacrificial  altar. 


OLD   STONES.  19 

These  minutioa  we  neither  observed  nor  heeded 
then.  With  an  involuntary  quietness,  unbroken 
even  by  the  sunshiny  wind,  rough  enough  to  make 
hats  weigh  heavy  on  our  minds,  and  only  too  light 
on  our  craniums,  and  sharp  enough  to  cause  a  glad 
recollection  of  lunch  in  a  basket — in  spite  of  these 
human  weaknesses,  we  all  felt  a  certain  awe  on  en- 
tering the  "  ancient  solitary  reign"  of  these  gray 
stones,  upright  or  prostrate,  the  mystery  of  which 
will  probably  never  be  revealed  or  discovered.  We 
felt  rather  ashamed  to  run  in  and  out  among  them, 
and  measure  our  height  with  them — puny  mortals 
as  we  looked,  the  tallest  of  us! — energetically  to 
clamber  over  the  great  fallen  blocks,  and  try  to 
find  out  which  was  the  identical  spot  upon  which, 
year  after  year,  the  human  victim  must  have  lain, 
taking  his  last  open-eyed  gaze  of  the  wide  emerald 
plain  and  blue  remorseless  sky. 

So  would  romance  have  dreamed;  but  Practi- 
cality, here  predominant,  soon  set  themselves — let 
me  at  once  say  himself- — to  calculate  the  height  and 
weight  of  the  "  old  stones,"  and  to  invent  a  plan,  by 
means  of  levers  and  earthworks,  whereby,  without 
any  other  machinery,  even  ancient  Britons  might 
have  erected  the  trilithons  and  the  outer  circle,  in 
the  uprights  of  which  he  soon  discovered  circular 
tenons,  fitting  exactly  into  the  mortices  carved  in 
the  top  stones,  to  prevent  their  sliding  off. 

"  Clever  fellows !"  he  observed,  with  the  satisfied 


20  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

patronage  of  modern  science.     "  Yes,  those  Druids 
were  very  clever  fellows  indeed." 

I  hope  their  ghosts  were  gratified,  if  any  still 
lingered  in  the  familiar  temple,  supposing  it  ever 
was  a  temple,  or  that  the  Druids  ever  built  it — all 
which  questions,  and  many  more,  we  discussed  over 
sandwiches  and  sherry,  incensed  by  faint  wreaths 
of  odor  from  a  weed  which  modern  Britain  worships 
as  ancient  Briton  did  the  mistletoe,  and,  en  passant, 
under  excuse  of  which  probably  effects  quite  as 
many  human  sacrifices.  Here,  though,  it  was  harm- 
less enough;  harmless,  too,  were  the  jokes  and 
laughter  that  broke  the  utter  dead  solitude  of  the 
place  until  we  dispersed  to  gather  for  ourselves  or 
for  our  neighbors,  small  mementos  of  Stonehenge,  in 
the  shape  of  moss,  bits  of  broken  stone,  and  dainty 
wee  flowers  that  perked  up  their  innocent  faces 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  immemorial  stones. 
Harmless  and  pretty,  too,  was  the  determined  perti- 
nacity with  which  Hope,  bringing  out  her  eternal 
book,  caught  Practicality's  coat-sleeve,  and  insisted 
on  reading  aloud  to  him  and  us  the  idyl  Sarum 
Plain,  which  endeth  thus  appropriately : 

"  By  the  great  stones  we  chose  our  ground 

For  shade ;  and  there,  in  converse  sweet, 
Took  luncheon.     On  a  little  mound 
Sat  the  three  ladies ;  at  their  feet 
I  sat,  and  smelt  the  heathy  smell — " 

("  There's  no  heath  hereabouts — it's  all  turf,"  ob- 
served Practicality.) 


OLD  STONES.  21 

'  'Pluck'd  harebells— " 

("  Nor  harebells  neither.  But  then  it  might  have 
been  autumn-time,7'  mildly  remarked  Charity.) 

"Pluck'd  harebells,  turn'd  the  telescope 
^To  the  country  round.     My  life  went  well 

That  hour,  without  the  wheels  of  Hope ; 
And  I  despised  the  Druid  rocks 

That  scowl'd  their  chill  gloom  from  above, 
Like  churls  whose  stolid  wisdom  mocks 

The  lightness  of  immortal  love." 

Immortal  love !  Yes,  in  this  place,  this  dumb  ora- 
cle of  a  forgotten  world — this  broken,  dishallowed 
temple  raised  by  unknown  worshipers  to  a  lost  god 
— one  felt  the  need  of  something  immortal,  some- 
thing immutable,  something  which  in  one  little  word 
expresses  the  best  of  all  good  things,  human  and 
divine,  and  which  in  itself  belongs  to  both.  And  I 
think  in  heart  or  eyes,  visible  or  invisible,  we  all 
had  it  and  rejoiced  in  it  there. 

And  now  we  were  going,  leaving  a  small  token 
of  affection  in  the  shape  of  a  paper  of  biscuits,  and 
a  neckless  though  not  quite  wineless  bottle  or  two, 
for  the  aborigines,  who  had  appeared  from  nowhere 
in  particular,  to  meekly  maunder  about  the  stones, 
and  offer  us  specimens,  retiring  abashed  before  we 
could  get  out  of  them  a  syllable  of  conversation. 
But  just  ere  departing  we  saw,  half  a  mile  off,  wind- 
ing slowly  across  the  Plain  toward  us,  a  mysterious 
machine,  half  wheel-barrow,  half  peep-show,  with  a 


22  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

man  behind  it — at  least  a  big  hat,  which  indicated 
a  man  underneath. 

My  good  man — when  you  stopped,  and  in  that 
business-like  way  took  out  your  sketch-book,  plans, 
curiosities,  spread  them  in  a  sheltered  nook,  and  be- 
gan to  lecture,  in  the  most  intelligent  fashion  I  ever 
heard  from  any  cicerone,  on  the  antiquities  of  Stone- 
henge — you  little  suspected  that  one  of  those  three 
innocent-looking  ladies  would  ever  put  you  in  print ! 
Not  that  I  think  you'll  have  the  slightest  objection 
to  it,  Mr.  Joseph  Browne,  of  Amesbury,  "  twenty- 
four  years  attending  illustrator  of  Stonehenge,"  as 
your  guide-book  says  (price  one  shilling,  and  worth 
two,  for  its  extraordinary  amount  of  intelligent  fact 
and  even  more  intelligent  fiction).  You  are  a  great 
character,  and  long  may  you  live  to  startle  tourists 
with  your  apparition,  and  enlighten  them  with  your 
discourse — a  condensed  edition  of  your  guide-book, 
or  rather  your  father's.  Behold  its  title  literatim ! 

"THE  UNPREJUDICED,  AUTHENTIC,  AND  HIGHLY-INTERESTING 
ACCOUNT 

WHICH   THAT 
STUPENDOUS   AND   BEAUTIFUL   EDIFICE, 

STONEHENGE, 

IN  WILTSHIRE, 
IS  FOUND  TO  GIVE  OF  ITSELF." 

Therein  is  proved,  to  the  author's  satisfaction  at 
least,  the  undoubted  origin  of  Stonehenge.  How  it 


OLD   STONES.  23 

was  the  work  of  neither  Komans,  Celts,  Druids,  nor 
Phoenicians,  but  of  antediluvians !  How,  though,  as 
the  writer  allows,  "the  difficulty  in  determining  the 
situation  of  the  abodes  of  those  antediluvians  who 
were  concerned  in  the  erection  of  the  Serpent  and 
Temple  at  Abury,  of  Silbury  Hill  and  of  Stone- 
henge,  is  very  considerable,"  he  brings  a  mass  of 
evidence,  wanting  in  nothing  but  a  few  slight  prem- 
ises to  start  from,  and  proves  that  the  giants  who 
were  before  the  Flood  could  alone  have  erected  the 
stones,  which  the  Flood  only  could  have  thrown 
down.  Of  these  antediluvians,  their  manners  and 
customs,  and  general  proceedings,  domestic,  social, 
and  religious — "  of  the  earnest  desire  that  existed 
in  Adam  to  perpetuate  a  knowledge  of  original 
sin,"  which  he  did  in  all  probability  by  the  erec- 
tion of  a  great  serpentine  temple — (at  Abury?) — 
"that  hieroglyphic  being  fully  adequate  to  so  mo- 
mentous an  end" — likewise  of  the  Deluge,  and  the 
course  of  its  waters,  "  running,  as  they  are  known 
to  have  done,  from  the  southwest  to  the  northeast" 
— of  these  and  all  other  matters  our  author  speaks 
with  a  decision,  confidence,  and  familiarity  quite 
enviable. 

Nevertheless,  despite  one's  smile  at  the  ease  with 
which  "  facts"  can  be  accumulated  into  a  great  cairn 
of  evidence  over  the  merest  dead  dust  of  a  theory 
which  a  breath  would  blow  away,  one  can  not  help 
appreciating  the  exceeding  intelligence  and  antiqua- 


24  STUDIES   FROM  LIFE. 

rian  ingenuity  of  both  Henry  Browne,  senior,  and 
Joseph.  Browne,  junior ;  and  all  visitors  to  Stone- 
fa  enge  will  miss  a  great  treat  if  they  do  not  invest 
a  shilling  in  the  guide-book,  and  one  or  two  more 
shillings  in  the  acute  explanations  of  the  guide. 

We  did  so ;  left  him  beaming  with  satisfaction  and ' 
bowing  till  the  big  hat  nearly  touched  his  knees — 
in  manners,  at  least,  our  friend  might  have  taken 
lessons  from  his  favorite  antediluvians — then  we 
rolled  slowly  over  the  smooth  soft  turf,  often  look- 
ing behind  till  the  great  gray  circle  lessened  and 
lessened,  and  finally  dropped  behind  one  of  the 
green  ridges. 

"  You  can't  see  it  any  more." 

"I  wonder  if  we  ever  shall  see  it  any  more." 

Charity  "was  afraid  not;"  Hope  thought  "she 
should  like  to  bring  her  boys  here  when  they  were 
old  enough  to  understand  it;"  Faith — did  what  Faith 
always  does,  and  let  the  question  bide.  One  thing, 
however,  was  certain,  that  we  should,  in  all  human 
probability,  never  be  all  here  again  as  now.  In 
mortal  life  are  renewals  sometimes,  very  happy 
ones,  but  no  repetitions — no  "second"  times.  Each 
pleasure  as  well  as  each  pain  stands  by  itself;  and 
though  the  new  thing  may  be  ten  times  better  than 
the  old,  still  it  can  not  be  the  very  thing — that  is 
gone  forever,  as  is  right  it  should  go. 

We  knew  well — and  in  spite  of  our  laughter  I 
think  we  felt — that  though  we  might  all  live  to  be 


OLD   STONES.  25 

old  men  and  old  women,  and  see  many  grand  sights 
up  and  down  the  world,  we  should  never  again  have 
a  day  exactly  like  this  our  day  at  Stonehenge. 

"Well,  do  you  want  to  see  any  more  'old 
stones?'" 

Of  course  we  did.  We  had  not  dragged  our  be- 
nevolent Practicality  all  that  distance  from  his  home 
and  work  to  let  him  off  with  any  thing  short  of  the 
utmost  we  could  get  out  of  him.  Besides,  some  of 
us  rising  early  had  already  given  glowing  descrip- 
tions of  what,  not  having  been  one  of  the  beholders, 
I  dare  not  attempt  to  paint — Salisbury  Cathedral 
and  Close,  under  the  aspect  of  seven  A.M.  and  a 
sunshiny  morning.  And  some  others  of  us  had, 
from  the  first  dawning  of  the  plan,  set  our  heart 
with  a  silent  pertinacity,  which  is  not  often  beaten 
into  any  thing,  on  seeing  all  that  could  be  seen  and 
told  about  the  said  cathedral. 

So,  after  a  few  carnal  but  not  unnecessary  ar- 
rangements at  the  inn  with  reference  to  lamb  and 
asparagus,  we  sallied  forth  again  into  Salisbury 
street — what  a  quaint,  pretty  old  town  it  is ! — and 
passed  under  the  heavy  gateway  which  shuts  out 
from  the  world  the  quiet  sanctities  of  Salisbury 
.Close.  We 

"Breathed  the  sunny  wind  that  rose 

And  blew  the  shadows  o'er  the  spire, 
And  toss'd  the  lilac's  scented  plumes, 

And  sway'd  the  chestnut's  thousand  cones, 

B 


26  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

And  fill'd  our  nostrils  with  perfumes, 
And  shaped  the  clouds  in  waifs  and  zones, 

And  wafted  down  the  serious  strain 
Of  Sarum  bells—" 

Not  exactly  yet,  as  it  was  before  service  •  time. 
Otherwise  the  picture  was  just  as  we  beheld  it 
that  26th  of  May,  1857. 

Of  all  English  Cathedrals,  perhaps  Salisbury  most 
merits  the  term  "beautiful."  Its  exquisite  light- 
ness, whiteness,  and  airy  grace,  set  in  the  midst  of 
a  wide  and  open  Close,  sometime  turf,  but  now  one 
golden  ocean  of  wavy  buttercups,  and  belted  in  by 
a  square  walk,  where  chestnut  and  lime  trees  of 
thickest  foliage  overhung  the  path,  and  half  shad- 
owed the  old  houses  and  small  bright  gardens ;  its 
glittering  windows  and  flying  buttresses,  from  which 
one's  gaze  wandered  to  the  most  delicate  of  spires, 
tapering  up  till  it  vanished  into  nothing  in  the 
broad  blue,  I  feel  it  is  impossible  to  describe ;  I  can 
only  shut  my  eyes  and  dream  of — this  first  vision 
of  Salisbury  Cathedral. 

"We  sauntered  slowly  along  the  path  through  the 
field  of  buttercups,  far  better  than  a  field  of  tomb- 
stones, as  it  was  for  centuries,  until  bold  Bishop 
Barrington  on  one  momentous  night  sent  an  army 
of  workmen,  who  before  daylight  had  leveled  the 
whole,  laying  each  tomb-stone  carefully  over  its 
proper  grave,  only — four  feet  below  the  surface, 
instead  of  upon  it !  How  the  good  people  of  Salis- 


OLD   STORES.  27 

bury  must  have  stared  and  stormed,  and  been  scan- 
dalized; but  the  deed  was  done  and  could  not  be 
undone ;  the  turf  grew  green,  the  dead  slept  quietly 
and  unharmed,  and  ceased  to  be  what  Providence 
never  meant  them  to  be,  though  man  has  tried  hard , 
to  make  them — a  burden,  a  terror,  or  a  destruction 
to  generations  of  the  living.  Now  there  ar.e  no 
more  burials  in  Salisbury  Close,  and  very  few  even 
in  the  cloisters. 

Passing  through  the  nave  to  the  Chapter-house, 
we  entered  these  cloisters.  Others  elsewhere  are 
grander — Gloucester  for  instance — but  here  again 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  can  compete  with 
Salisbury  in  beauty.  This  covered  cloister-walk 
encircles  a  space  open  to  the  sky,  with  (I  think) 
only  two  yew-trees  planted  in  it.  The  verger  told 
us  that  the  late  bishop  took  great  pride  in  it,  and, 
after  his  wife  was  buried  there,  would  not  allow 
even  a  daisy  to  mar  the  exquisite  green  of  the  turf, 
but  paid  old  women  to  go  and  pick  them  every 
morning.  His  three  family  tomb-stones  are  the 
only  tombs  allowed ;  over  all  the  other  graves  are 
tiny  tablets  let  into  the  level  grass ;  and  so  narrow 
is  the  space  that  each  grave  is  required  to  be  dug 
coffin-shaped.  Through  the  lately-moved  turf  we 
could  trace  still  in  more  than  one  spot  this  familiar 
outline,  never  to  be  looked  upon  without  a  certain 
awe. 

We  entered  the  Chapter-house,  which  is  being  re- 


28  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

stored  by  subscription,  as  a  tribute  to  this  late  bish- 
op's memory.  Here  again  the  exquisite  airiness  of 
Salisbury  architecture  struck  us.  This  great,  lofty, 
circular  chamber — chapel  almost — is  entirely  sup- 
ported by  one  centre  pillar,  or  rather  cluster  of 
united  pillars,  from  which  all  the  arches  spring. 
You  stand  under  it  as  under  some  slender  palm- 
tree,  and  look  up  wondering  at  its  aerial  lightness, 
its  ineffable  grace.  Nor  even  when  overpowered 
by  the  extreme  ornamentation  of  the  "restored" 
building  (one  of  us  suggesting  that  the  restorer  had 
better  have  left  it  alone  was  quite  annihilated  by 
the  verger's  " Indeed!  you  think  so,  madam!")  do 
we  lose  this  sense  of  the  unity  and  simplicity  which 
constitute  a  perfect  form  of  beauty. 

"  Rather  different  from  Stonehenge.  Quite  a  va- 
riety in  old  stones,"  observed  our  escort,  after  ex- 
amining and  recognizing  the  Purbeck  marble  and 
pavement  of  Minton's  tiles — admirable  modern  im- 
itations of  the  antique. 

Yes ;  it  could  not  fail  to  set  us  pondering  how 

"The  One  remains — the  many  change  and  pass." 

The  OKE,  whom  Shelley  knew  not,  or  knew  so  dim- 
ly ;  whom,  ignorantly  and  blindly,  all  earthly  gen- 
erations have  in  divers  manners  striven  to  adore,  in 
all  manner  of  temples,  from  these  rude  stones  of 
Stonehenge,  so  placed  that  the  sun  rising  in  his 
place  upon  the  longest  day — and  only  then — shall 


OLD   STONES.  29 

strike  through  the  gateway  on  to  the  sacrificial 
stone,  to  this  fair  Cathedral,  upon  which  the  de- 
vices of  man's  brain  and  hand,  through  six  hund- 
red years,  have  been  lavished,  to  glorify  in  mate- 
rial shape  the  Immaterial,  whose  glory  the  whole 
earth  and  heavens  can  not  contain. 

We  trod  lightly,  as  instinctively  one  treads  on 
"  consecrated  ground" — consecrated  not  by  mere 
human  episcopal  benediction,  but  by  the  worship 
of  centuries ;  devout,  if  erring — sincere,  though  in 
many  things  blind.  We  heard  the  traditions  of 
the  place ;  saw  the  usual  cross-legged,  broken-nosed 
Crusaders ;  the  boy -bishop,  who  in  the  midst  of  his 
mummeries  ate  himself  to  death — poor  little  rogue! 
—was  buried  with  all  canonical  honors,  and  whose 
tiny  effigy  may  be  seen  to  this  day ;  the  skeleton 
monk,  who  still  lives  in  stone,  to  impress  beholders 
with  a  wholesome  terror  of  mortality  and  corrup- 
tion. With  these  wonders,  and  a  score  more,  we 
regaled  our  curiosity,  till  a  few  living  figures,  quaint 
and  quiet,  such  as  one  always  notices  in  cathedral 
towns,  entered  a  little  door,  and  stole,  prayer-book 
in  hand,  along  the  nave  toward  the  choir;  while 
over  our  heads — far  up,  as  it  were — the  service-bell 
began  to  toll  dreamily  and  slow. 

We  had  no  time  to  stay  longer,  so  out  into  the 
open  air.  Passing  through  the  door  at  the  great 
west  front,  we  turned  back  to  look  at  it;  and,  though 
unlearned  in  church  architecture,  stood  marveling 


SO  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

at  its  rich  decorative  work,  endlessly  varied,  over 
which  a  little  bold,  happy  sparrow  hopped  up  and 
down,  and  in  or  out,  as  if  the  whole  of  Salisbury 
Cathedral  were  made  for  him  to  build  his  nest  in. 
Thence  we  walked  slowly  round  the  Close,  in  one 
corner  of  which  a  group  of  boys  were  just  quitting 
a  most  unecclesiastical  game  of  cricket,  and  disap- 
pearing hastily  either  for  school  or  prayers.  We 
passed  out  through  the  gateway,  leaving  the  bell 
still  ringing  and  the  clouds  still  floating  over  the 
airy  spire — the  May  winds  still  rustling  the  chest- 
nut-trees and  waving  the  buttercups,  and  the  sun- 
shine glorifying  into  almost  unimaginable  white- 
ness and  beauty  Salisbury  Cathedral. 

Finally  home ;  in  the  cool  of  the  day  traveling- 
right  across  country,  a  country  purely  English  ; 
skirting  parks  where  the  trees  stood  one  by  one, 
majestic  pyramids  of  green,  with  their  branches 
sweeping  the  very  ground ;  past  rich  fields  dotted 
with  red  and  white  cows  ruminating  in  the  grass 
or  standing  knee-deep  in  a  pond,  too  lazy  to  do 
more  than  turn  to  us  the  mild,  calm,  sleepy  gaze 
whence  Homer  calls  Juno  "the  ox-eyed  ;"  through 
quiet  villages,  in  which  children  and  old  women 
gaped  at  us  out  of  open  doors,  where  every  cottage 
had  a  porch,  and  every  porch  was  a  mass  of  wood- 
bine or  China  roses — a  drive  not  easily  to  be  for- 
gotten, from  the  lovely  pictures  it  gave  of  one's 
own  country — one's  modern,  everyday,  living  and 


OLD  STONES.  31 

breathing  England,  which  with  all  her  faults  we 
fondly  believe  to  be 

"Beloved  of  Heaven  o'er  all  the  world  beside." 

.Finally,  as  I  said,  home,  to  nnd  the  children 
asleep,  and  sit  for  an  hour  or  so  at  a  quiet  fireside, 
talking  over  all  our  doings,  which  will  serve  for 
talk  still  when  we  are  all  gray -headed,  and  the 
"  little  ones" — probably  six  feet  high — may  be 
taken — I  beg  their  pardon,  may  take  us  to  see 
Stonehenge. 

"Well,  have  you,  on  the  whole,  enjoyed  your 
' Old  Stones?'" 

I  should  rather  think  we  had ! 


32  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


Stknte  for  a  (Alteration. 

"  Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end." 

A  DICTUM  has  been  lately  reported  of  the  great 
rnonologuing  moralist  of  our  times,  the  modern  Sam- 
uel Johnson  of  adoring  English  Boswells,  American 
Goldsmiths,  and  aristocratic  Mrs.  Piozzis.  And  since 
authors  can  not  be  expected  to  write  one  thing  and 
say  another,  the  sentence  may  probably  be  found  in 
print,  though,  alas !  vainly  could  type  emulate  that 
ponderous  monotonous  roll  of  long-drawn  vowels 
and  harsh  resolute  consonants  which  gives  to  the 
said  moralist's  speech  even  more  originality  than 
his  pen.  "Sir,"  said  he,  "the  one  thing  wanted  in 
this  world  is  silence.  I  wish  all  the  talkers  had 
their  tongues  cut  out,  and  all  the  writers  had  their 
pens,  ink,  and  paper,  books  and  manuscripts,  thrown 
into  the  Thames,  and  there  were  silence  for  a  gen- 
eration." 

One  not  a  disciple  might  suggest  that  the  illus- 
trious author  had  better  set  the  example,  and  satir- 
ically begin  to  calculate  the  amount  of  possible  loss 
to  the  world  by  such  a  proceeding.  Nevertheless, 
a  great  and  wise  man's  most  foolish  sayings  are  like- 
ly to  contain  some  wisdom ;  and  the  above  sentence 


SILENCE   FOR  A   GENERATION.  33 

deserves  consideration,  as  involving  certainly  an 
ounce  of  solid  truth  in  a  bushel  of  eccentric  ex- 
travagance. 

Silence  for  a  generation.  What  a  glorious  state 
of  things !  No  authors  and  no  reviewers ;  no  ora- 
tors, political,  controversial,  or  polemical,  and  no 
critics  on  oratory;  no  newspapers;  no  magazines; 
no  new  novelists  to  be  advertised  up,  no  new  poets 
to  be  bowled  down;  travelers  to  wander  and  never 
relate  their  adventures;  men  of  science  to  make  dis- 
coveries, and  be  unable  either  to  communicate  or 
to  squabble  over  them ;  philanthropists  allowed  to 
speculate  at  will  on  the  abuses  of  society  so  long  as 
they  concealed  their  opinions ;  in  short,  the  world 
to  return  to  the  ante-Cadmus  period,  and  compelled, 
in  familiar  but  expressive  phrase,  "to  keep  itself  to 
itself,  and  never  say  nothing  to  nobody." 

What  a  wondrous  time !  what  a  lull  in  the 
said  world's  history !  Even  to  dream  of  it  sends 
through  the  tired  nerves  and  brain  a  sensation  of 
Elysian  repose. 

Silence  for  a  generation  —  which  generation  of 
people,  great  or  small,  clever  or  stupid,  should  be 
born  unheralded,  grow  up  unchronicled,  live  un- 
criticised,  and  die  unbiographized.  It  should  feel 
without  discussing  its  feelings ;  suffer  without  pa- 
rading its  sufferings ;  admire  without  poetizing  its 
admiration  ;  condemn  without  printing  its  condem- 
nations. Its  good  and  ill  deeds  should  spring  up 
B2 


34  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

as  naturally  as  the  flowers  and  weeds  of  a  garden, 
to  be  left  "  all  a-growing  and  a-blowing,"  or  quietly 
pulled  up.  All  this  busy,  gabbling,  scribbling,  self- 
analyzing,  self-conscious  society  should  be  laid  un- 
der a  spell  of  hopeful  dumbness — forced  to  exist 
simply,  exempt  even  from  the  first  axiom  of  meta- 
physics :  "  I  think,  therefore  I  am." 

Such  a  state  of  universal  silence  who  would  wel- 
come ?  Possibly  nobody ;  least  of  all  those  who 
have  really  nothing  to  say. 

What,  in  that  case,  would  become  of  the  innu- 
merous  shadowy  throng  who  haunt  every  periodical ; 
unanswered  and  "  unread  correspondents,"  authors, 
of  whom  a  luckless  editor  once  cried  out  to  the 
present  writer  in  a  sort  of  hopeless  despair,  "  Don't 
say  you're  bringing  me  another  manuscript !  Look 
there !  I've  got  a  heap  of  them  two  yards  high." 

And  you,  ye  cumberers  of  publishers'  shelves,  in 
print  and  out  of  it,  inditers  of  novels  that  nobody 
reads,  poetry  that  nobody  understands,  and  mental 
miscellanea  that  may  be  briefly  ticketed  as  "  Rub- 
bish :  of  no  use  to  any  body  except  the  owner" — - 
what  would  be  your  sensations  ?  You  too,  young 
and  ardent  thinkers,  so  exceedingly  anxious  to  ex- 
press your  thoughts  by  word  or  pen,  as  if  nobody 
had  expressed  the  like  before,  and  the  world,  as  you 
honestly  and  devoutly  believe,  would  be  the  better 
for  that  expression — truly,  rather  hard  upon  you 
would  fall  this  compulsory  silence.  For  you  can 


SILENCE   FOR  A  GENERATION".  35 

not  yet  see  that,  great  as  literature  is,  it  is  merely 
the  fitful  manifestation  of  the  world's  rich  inner 
life — its  noblest  thoughts,  its  most  heroic  deeds: 
that  this  life  flows  on  everlastingly  and  untiringly, 
and  would  continue  to  flow  were  there  no  such 
things  as  pens,  ink,  paper,  and  authors,  types,  print- 
ers, booksellers,  and  publishers. 

Woefully  would  such  a  crisis  affect  a  race  of 
litterateurs  far,  far  below  these,  who  pursue  author- 
ship simply  as  a  trade,  without  the  slightest  faith 
in  it  or  reverence  for  it — who,  happening  to  have 
been  born  or  brought  up  in  what  is  termed  "  literary 
circles,"  possess  hereditarily  or  through  long  habit 
a  certain  aptitude  with  the  pen,  and  accordingly 
make  it  a  business  tool  with  which  to  write  any 
thing  or  every  thing,  no  matter  what,  so  that,  like 
any  other  tool,  it  suffices  to  earn  their  daily  bread. 
What  would  become  of  these,  who,  like  most  gab- 
blers, prate,  not  out  of  their  fullness,  but  their  emp- 
tiness, if  there  were  an  age  of  silence? 

There  is  another  class  as  heavily  to  be  condemn- 
ed, and  yet  more  pitiable — the  authors — real  au- 
thors, not  bookmakers  —  unto  whom  such  a  law 
would  teach  what  they  have  not  the  moral  courage 
to  teach  themselves,  the  timely  necessity  of  silence. 
How  many  lamentable  instances  do  we  know  of 
these — writers  who  have  written  themselves  out, 
yet  still  go  on  writing. 

For  example :  a  book  appears ;  it  has  merit ;  it 


36  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

succeeds,  and  deserves  to  succeed ;  its  author  rises 
into  note,  becomes  a  man  whom  coteries  seek,  whom 
the  public  flatters  and  esteems,  whom  publishers 
bargain  with,  urge,  and  sue.  His  wares  are  valu- 
able, consequently  the  more  he  produces  of  them 
the  better.  Money  follows  fame,  and  expenses  fol- 
low money.  He  who  wrote  at  first  because  he  loved 
it,  and  could  not  help  it,  now  writes  for  a  living; 
or,  if  he  wrote  at  first  for  a  living,  now  writes  for 
an  income — the  handsome  income  which  a  man  of 
talent  can  so  willingly  enjoy  and  so  readily  spend. 
People  say,  "What  a  deal  of  money  Mr.  So-and-so 
must  make !" — as  possibly  he  does  ;  but  they  forget 
how  he  makes  it.  Not  out  of  so  many  hours  per 
diem  of  handwork  or  mechanical  headwork,  of  in- 
genious turning  of  capital,  or  clever  adaptation  of 
other  people's  ingenuity.  All  his  capital,  all  his 
machinery,  all  his  available  means  of  work,  lie  in  a 
few  ounces  of  delicate  substance,  the  most  delicate 
in  the  whole  human  structure,  wonderfully  organ- 
ized, and  yet  subject  to  every  disorganization,  men- 
tal or  material,  that  chance  may  furnish — his  brain. 
People  do  not  recognize  this — perhaps  he  does 
not  recognize  it  himself.  He  may  be  a  very  hon- 
est man,  deserving  all  his  fame  and  all  his  monej^. 
Yet  both  must  be  kept  up;  and  how  does  he  do  it? 
He  goes  on  writing  for  a  long  time — faithfully,  care- 
fully, and  well,  having  respect  both  to  the  public 
and  his  own  credit. 


SILENCE   FOR  A   GENERATION.  37 

But  Providence  allows  to  every  intellect  only  a 
certain  amount  of  development,  limited  by  certain 
laws,  spiritual  and  physical,  known  or  unknown, 
yet  not  one  of  which  can  be  broken  with  impunity. 
The  brain  is  like  a  rich  quarry ;  you  may  work  it 
out  in  a  year,  or  you  may,  with  care  and  diligence, 
make  it  last  a  lifetime ;  but  you  can  not  get  out  of 
it  more  than  is  in  it;  and,  work  as  you  will,  you 
must  get  to  the  end  of  the  vein  some  day.  So  does 
our  author  ;  but  still — he  writes  on. 

He  must  write ;  it  is  his  trade.  Gradually  he  be- 
comes a  mere  trader — traffics  in  sentiment,  emotion, 
philanthropy.  Aware  of  his  own  best  points,  he  re- 
peats himself  over  and  over  again.  How  can  he 
help  it?  He  must  write.  'But,  whether  he  knows 
it  or  not,  he  has  written  himself  out.  For  the  rest 
of  his  career,  he  lives  on  the  shadow  of  his  former 
reputation,  letting  fall,  perhaps,  a  few  stray  gems 
out  of  that  once  rich  store-house  of  his  brain,  or 
else  he  drops  at  once,  a  burnt-out  candle,  an  oilless 
lamp,  vanishing  into  such  utter  darkness  that  for  a 
long  time,  until  perhaps  posterity  judges  him  more 
fairly,  it  is  almost  doubted  whether  there  was  ever 
any  light  in  him  at  all. 

This  truth — fellow-authors,  is  it  not  a  truth?— 
could  be  illustrated  by  a  dozen  instances,  living  as 
well  as  dead,  did  not  charity  forbid  their  being 
chronicled  cruelly  here. 

Such  things,  befalling  not   ignoble   but   noble 


38  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

minds,  do  indeed  force  us  to  see  some  sense  in  our 
severe  moralist's  impossible  ultimatum.  But  sure- 
ly it  is  worth  pausing  to  consider  whether  the  evil 
which  he  deplores  could  not  be  cured  by  less  arbi- 
trary means  than  an  age  of  silence. 

The  time  is  gone  by  when  literature  was  a  merely 
ornamental  craft — when  unsuccessful  authors  were 
Grub  Street  drudges,  and  successful  ones  some  pa- 
tron's idle  hangers-on,  or  perhaps  independent  pa- 
trons themselves.  Gone  by  also,  except  in  very 
youthful  and  enthusiastic  minds,  is  the  imaginary 
ideal  of  "an  author" — a  demigod  not  to  be  judged 
like  other  men,  and  entirely  exempt  from  reproba- 
tion, whether  he  attain  the  climax  of  fame,  or  groan 
under  the  life-long  wrongs  of  unappreciated  genius. 

Happily,  in  these  days,  we  have  very  little  un- 
appreciated genius.  Go  round  the  picture  exhibi- 
tions, and  depend  upon  it  you  will  find  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  really  good  pictures  marked  "  sold." 
Inquire  of  any  magazine  editor,  and  he  will  tell  you 
that  he  is  only  too  thankful  to  get  a  really  power- 
ful and  original  article,  no  matter  who  writes  it; 
that  such  papers  will  always  command  their  fair 
price  ;  and  that  the  sole  reason  of  their  rarely  illu- 
minating his  pages  is  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining them.  Ask  any  publisher  of  honor,  credit, 
and  liberality — as  the  majority  of  them  are — and 
he  will  own  that,  though  a  bad  book  may  be  puffed 
into  factitious  notoriety,  and  a  good  book  remain 


SILENCE   FOR  A  GENERATION.  39 

temporarily  unknown,  give  each  a  fair  chance,  and 
both  are  sure  to  find  their  own  level,  ay,  sooner 
than  the  world  imagines.  There  never  was  an  era 
in  literature  in  which  an  author  might  be  more  sure 
of  finding — the  only  thing  an  honest  author  would 
desire — u  a  fair  field  and  no  favor." 

Any  writer  of  genius,  nay,  even  of  available  tal- 
ent, will  always  be  able,  sooner  or  later,  to  earn  a 
livelihood  by  the  pen.  We  repeat,  meaningly,  a 
livelihood.  Whether,  hapless  instrument!  it  will 
suffice  to  give  dinners  to  millionaires,  and  furnish 
white  gloves  and  velvet  gowns  for  countesses'  as- 
semblies— whether  it  will,  in  short,  supply  to  the 
man  or  woman  of  letters  all  the  luxuries  of  the 
merchant-prince,  and  all  the  position  of  ancestral 
nobility,  is  quite  another  question — a  question  as 
solemn  as  any  writer  can  ask  himself.  Alas  for 
him  if  neither  he  nor  those  for  whom  his  pen  is  the 
bread-winner  have  the  moral  courage  to  reply ! 

In  one  sense,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  cant  sympa- 
thy and  idle  enthusiasm  wasted  upon  authors  and 
authorship.  Noble  as  literature  is,  it  is  neverthe- 
less no  mere  picturesque  recreation ;  it  is  a  profes- 
sion, a  calling — a  trade,  if  you  will — to  be  pursued 
in  all  love  and  reverence,  but  as  steadily,  honestly, 
and  rationally  as  any  trade.  You  would  laugh  at 
a  workman  who  threw  away  his  materials;  you 
would  blame  a  merchant  who  rashly  expended  his 
capital ;  you  would  turn  away,  as  from  something 


.40  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

dishonest,  from  a  shopkeeper  who  tried  to  foist 
upon  you  goods  inferior  to  those  you  expected  him 
to  sell  and  wished  to  buy ;  and  yet  all  these  acts, 
under  fine  names,  are  sometimes  perpetrated  by 
authors.  How  is  it  that  they  and  their  belongings 
are  so  slow  to  recognize  the  meanness,  the  actual 
dishonesty — for  it  is  fraud,  not  against  the  public 
only,  but  against  his  own  soul  and  its  Maker — 
when,  not  for  daily  bread,  but  for  "  position," 
"society,77  " keeping  up  a  family,"  and  all  the  pegs 
on  which  excuses  can  be  hung,  an  author  goes  on 
writing,  writing,  long  after  he  has  got  any  thing  to 
say? 

For  what  is  it  that  constitutes  the  author  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  rest  of  the  world,  who  live,  suf- 
fer, and  enjoy  in  a  placid  unconscious  dumbness? 
It  is  because  he  is  the  loosened  tongue  of  all  this 
mute  humanity.  Because,  somehow  or  other,  he 
knows  not  how  or  wherefore,  he  feels  a  spirit  stir- 
ring within  him,  teaching  him  to  speak;  and  he 
must  speak.  In  himself  he  is  no  better — often, 
alas  1  less  good — than  the  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  silent  ones ;  yet  in  this  he  is  set  apart  from  them 
all — he  is  the  speaker.  Art,  nature,  with  all  their 
mysteries,  by  others  only  felt,  are  by  him  under- 
stood. It  may  be  that  into  most  things  he  sees  a 
little  farther  than  most  people,  but  whether  or  not, 
,  to  the  extent  that  he  does  see,  has  been  given  him 
the  power  to  arrange  and  demonstrate,  which  has 


SILENCE   FOR  A  GENERATION.  41 

not  been  given  to  them.  Without  any  vain-glory 
or  self-exultation — God  knows  how  little  there  is 
to  exult  over! — every  true  author  must  be  con- 
scious of  this  fact,  that  by  some  strange  peculiarity, 
as  incomprehensible  to  himself  as  to  any  one  else,  it 
has  been  granted  him  to  express  what  others  only 
experience — that  whether  the  sound  be  small  or 
loud,  clear  or  harsh,  he  is  the  living  voice  of  the 
world. 

Then,  in  God's  name,  let  him  dare  not  ever  to 
open  his  mouth  unless  he  has  something  to  say. 

Eather,  infinitely  rather,  let  him  live  moderate- 
ly, feed  plainly,  eschew  fashionable  frivolities  and 
expensive  delights  as  he  would  the  allurements  of 
that  disguised  individual  whom  St.  Anthony's  hon- 
est tongs  seized  by  the  beautiful  nose.  Let  him 
turn  his  back  upon  adoring  crowds  who  would 
win  him  from  his  true  vocation  of  the  worker  and 
thinker  to  that  of  the  mere  idler.  Let  him  write, 
if  needs  must,  for  his  daily  bread — an  honorable 
and  lawful  act;  but  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  write 
for  his  mere  pleasures  and  luxuries,  or  for  the 
maintenance  of  a  certain  status  in  the  world,  let 
him  pause.  And  as  soon  as  he  feels  himself  writ- 
ing, not  because  he  is  impelled  thereto,  having 
something  to  write  about,  but  because  publishers 
and  public  expect  him  to  write  about  something, 
or,  worse,  because  money  is  to  be  made,  and  writ- 
ing a  book  is  the  only  way  to  make  it,  let  him  stop 


42  STUDIES   FROM  LIFE. 

at  once  and  cry,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan.  How 
shall  I  dare  to  prostitute  my  gifts — not  for  necessa- 
ry bread  and  cheese,  but  for  things  which  are  not 
necessary,  riches,  show,  and  notoriety  ?" 

Better  let  him  live  on  this  honest  bread  and 
cheese,  reducing  his  wants  to  the  narrowest  limit ; 
nay,  better  slip  from  the  world  of  letters  altogether 
into  kindly  obscuirty,  than  go  on- — scribble,  scribble, 
scribble — flooding  the  public  with  milk-and-water 
mediocrity,  reducing  the  noblest  calling  under  the 
sun  to  mere  journeyman's  task- work,  and  degrading 
himself,  his  subtle  intellect  or  brilliant  imagination, 
to  the  condition  of  a  spiritual  suicide.  For  he  has 
murdered  worse  than  his  body — his  genius,  his 
moral  faculties,  his  soul. 

And  cui  bono  ? 

To  most  professional  authors  this  question  at 
times  presents  itself  forcibly.  What  is  the  use  of 
literature?  What  is  the  good  of  writing  at  all, 
when  the  noblest  of  fictions,  the  grandest  of  poems, 
or  the  purest  and  most  elevating  of  psychological 
disquisitions,  is  at  best  but  a  faint  reflex  of  what  is 
going  on  in  the  world  continually?  If  that  same 
world  could  only  perceive  it,  its  own  simple  and 
natural  existence  in  joy  and  grief,  struggle,  action, 
and  endurance,  is  a  higher  thing  than  all  imaginary 
representations  or  intellectual  analyzations  thereof. 
Do  we  not,  we  authors,  continually  see  living  pic- 
tures lovelier  than  any  we  can  portray — ideals 


SILENCE   FOR   A   GENERATION.  43 

which,  if  transferred  literally  to  paper  and  print, 
readers  would  never  believe  in?  Do  we  not,  cre- 
ating our  imaginary  world — which,  the  aforesaid 
reader  may  happen  to  think  pleasant  and  fair — often 
smile  at  him  in  secret,  while  of  ourselves  and  for 
ourselves  we  can  not  choose  but  sigh  ?  What  non- 
sense, what  execrable  travesty,  all  stage-paint,  tinsel, 
and  canvas,  frequently  appears  this  fictitious  arena 
in  which  we  make  our  puppets  move,  compared  to 
the  realities  around  us!  How  small  seem  our  got- 
up  tragedies — how  shallow  our  feigned  passions — 
how  paltry  our  imaginary  pathos  when  we  look  at 
this,  God's  world,  filled  with  men  and  women  of 
His  making ;  where  we  meet,  as  we  do  continually, 
scenes  beyond  all  painting ;  characters  of  variety 
inexhaustible;  histories  that  in  their  elements  of 
terror,  pathos,  heroism,  tenderness,  put  to  shame  all 
our  feeble  delineations.  Daily  do  we  feel  that  so 
far  from  trying  to  reproduce  it,  we  are  hardly  wor- 
thy to  look  in  the  face  of  it,  this  ideal  beauty,  this 
infinite  perfection,  which,  however  disguised  and 
corrupted,  unseen  or  unrecognized,  is  the  central 
essence  of  all  the  wonderful  world. 

And  sometimes  we  would  fain  it  were  so  left  and 
not  written  about ;  that 

"Love  and  beauty,  and  delight, 

.     .     Whose  might 
Exceeds  our  organs,  which  endure 
No  light,  being  themselves  obscure," 


44  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

might  rest  in  heavenly  shadow,  safe  from  frantic 
poets,  who  vainly  seek  to  imitate  the  inimitable ; 
that  vice  might  perish  out  of  the  perishableness  of 
her  own  corruption,  undescribed  and  unexposed ; 
that  virtue  were  left  to  dwell  unconscious  and  at 
ease,  without  being  startled  by  the  sight  of  her  own 
lovely  image  very  badly  copied,  and  possibly  some- 
what out  of  drawing. 

Ay,  and  oftentimes,  especially  of  days  such  as 
this  on  which  we  write,  when  birds  are  singing,  and 
green  leaves  budding,  and  all  nature  bursting  out 
into  redundant  life,  innocent  of  authors,  printers, 
and  books,  do  we  authors  long  for  a  brief  season  of 
that  celestial  silence — to  lie  down  and  dream,  with- 
out order,  arrangement,  or  even  consciousness  in 
the  dreams ;  to  gaze,  enjoy,  observe,  and  act,  natu- 
rally and  involuntarily ;  to  live,  and  see  all  around 
us  living,  the  life  of  a  mere  flower  of  the  field. 

Even  as  Wordsworth,  the  charm  of  whose  genius 
is  this  power  of  making  himself  "  one  with  nature," 
recalling  how 

* '  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 

Which  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills, 

Till  all  at  once  I  saw  a  crowd, 
A  host  of  golden  daffodils : 

Beside  the  lake,  beneath  the  trees, 
Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze  ; 

so  that  ever  afterward, 

"  In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood, 
They  flash  upon  the  inward  eye, 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude." 


SILENCE    FOR   A   GENERATION.  45 

Wordsworth  himself  can  find  no  other  form  in 
which  to  define  this  exquisite  sensation  of  mere  ex- 
istence without  consciousness  of  existence  than  that 
drawn  from  his  flowers : 

"  And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  fills, 
And  dances  with  the  daffodils." 

Truly,  this  sort  of  writing  bids  us  pause  in  our  de- 
mand for  silence.  It  makes  us  feel  that  there  may 
be  some  good  in  authorship ;  that  genius,  the  power 
which  by  means  of  a  few  inches  of  black  type  and 
white  paper  can  reconvey  to  the  human  mind  all  its 
passions,  emotions,  and  aspirations — can  retranslate 
to  it  the  whole  beautiful  and  immortal  life  of  the 
universe — this  genius  must  be  a  wondrous  gift — a 
divine  possession.  Let  those  who  have  it  hold  it 
intact,  un alienated,  unsquandered,  undefiled. 

And  for  those  who  have  it  not  there  is  little  to 
repine.  They  possess  most  of  its  benefits,  safe  from 
its  dangers  and  tribulations.  Any  man  who  can 
enjoy  a  fine  poem,  feel  his  heart  strengthened  by  a 
good  novel,  and  his  spirit  refreshed  by  a  few  pages 
of  wholesome  waiting,  rich  in  that  true  humor  which 
is  such  a  lightener  of  the  heavy  burdens  of  life,  is 
as  great  and  happy  as  the  author,  if  he  only  knew 
it.  Let  him  rejoice  and  be  thankful ;  he  also  has 
been  in  Arcadia. 

For  the  rest,  sorry  pretenders  to  literature,  vain 
chattering  pies  who  really  have  no  song  to  sing,  and 


46  STUDIES  FKOM   LIFE. 

only  desire  to  hear  the  clatter  of  their  own  sweet 
voices,  let  them  be.  No  need  to  have  their  small 
tongues  cut  out,  or  their  luckless  manuscripts  tied 
up  in  a  bundle  and  flung  into  the  Thames  or  any 
other  river.  A  few  years  will  end  all  their  clamor 
in  an  unbroken  and  eternal  silence ;  and  their  works, 
designed  to  float  down  the  stream  of  time,  will  soon 
sink  to  the  bottom  by  their  own  ponderosity,  and 
afflict  its  waters  no  more,  Requiescant  in  pace  !  All 
things  find  their  own  level  very  soon.  The  world 
will  do  extremely  well  even  without  silence  for  a 
generation. 


GOING  OUT  TO  PLAY.  47 


©ohig  out  to  |Jlag. 

WHO  that  has  lived  to  middle  age,  when  to  work 
has  become  the  principal  object  of  existence,  does 
not  look  back  with  an  amused  interest,  a  half-mel- 
ancholy wonder,  on  that  season  when  "  going  out 
to  play"  was  an  acknowledged  daily  necessity; 
when  we  sallied  forth  with  no  pretense  of  duty  or 
labor,  neither  to  walk,  nor  ride,  nor  pay  visits,  nor 
do  errands ;  bent  on  no  definite  scheme  of  action — 
going  out  simply  and  absolutely  "to  play?"  And 
those  Saturday  afternoons  —  those  glorious  whole 
holidays  —  those  delicious  accidental  half  hours, 
form  the  largest  feature  in  our  recollections  now. 

Going  out  to  play !  It  seems  ludicrous  to  fancy 
ourselves  ever  doing  such  a  thing — we,  who  have 
to  tramp  in  and  out  of  town  on  our  daily  business, 
and  do  it;  or  feel  we  are  bound  to  pay  a  visit,  and 
pay  it;  that  it  is  our  duty  to  take  a  constitutional 
walk,  and  we  take  it;  to  plan  a  pleasure  excursion, 
and  we  solemnly  go  through  with  it.  But  as  for 
turning  out  of  doors  for  a  given  space  of  time,  to 
go  nowhere  and  do  nothing  particular,  what  a  ri- 
diculous idea  it  has  become !  Only  by  a  strong  ef- 
fort of  mental  transposition  and  retrogradation  can 


48  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

we  sympathize  with  a  certain  dear  little  soul  of  my 
acquaintance,  who,  after  being  sedulously  petted  and 
entertained  for  a  whole  week  by  a  houseful  of  be- 
nevolent grown-up  people,  said  pathetically, 

"  Me  want  to  go  out  and  play  !  Me  want  a  'ittle 
girl  to  play  with  me !  Me  shouldn't  care  if  she  was 
a  'ittle  girl  in  rags !" 

In  this  play  companionship  is  the  great  matter 
— companionship  based  on  quite  different  grounds 
from  that  of  later  life.  Except  a  few,  endowed  with 
that  passionate  adhesiveness  which  is  sure  to  prove 
in  after-life  at  once  their  blessing  and  their  torment, 
children  are  seldom  either  unselfish  or  devoted  in 
their  attachments.  Most  of  their  loves  are  mere 
likings,  contracted  for  the  pleasure  of  the  moment. 
Their  'dear  little  free  hearts  need  neither  a  friend 
nor  a  lover;  they  only  want  " somebody  to  play 
with."  Any  body  will  do — even  the  "  'ittle  girl 
in  rags."  Those  who  have  experienced  that  pre- 
mature clouding  of  life's  golden  morning — a  soli- 
tary childhood,  may  remember  the  wistful  longing 
with  which  they  have  stood  watching  groups  of 
dirty,  happy  little  rogues  collected  at  street-corners 
and  on  village-greens,  and  how  sorely  they  have 
rebelled  at  the  prohibitions  which  made  it  impossi- 
ble to  join  them.  Easy  age !  when  there  is  no  pa- 
trician exclusiveness,  and  little  of  the  eclecticism  of 
personal  tastes  or  affections;  when  the  chief  thing 
wanted  is  society — companionship. 


GOING   OUT  TO   PLAY.  49 

But,  as  if  in  compensation  for  this,  the  tie,  so  slight 
then,  becomes  afterward  so  tightly  riveted  that  there 
are  few  pleasures  purer  or  more  exquisite  than  that 
taken  by  old  playmates,  or  children  of  one  family, 
in  talking  over  every  trivial  thing  belonging  to  their 
contemporary  childhood;  and  the  same  tacit  free- 
masonry which  makes  most  people  hear  patiently 
any  sort  of  love-story,  makes  every  body  listen  with 
a  vague  interest  to  the  chronicle  of  every  body  else's 
childhood;  for  both  themes  form  two  out  of  the  three 
universal  facts  of  human  life — birth,  love,  and  death. 

Therefore  it  may  amuse  some,  if,  prior  to  saying 
a  few  serious  words  on  the  subject  of  play,  I  gossip 
a  little  as  we  did  the  other  night  over  our  fire — I 
and  the  only  one  now  left  to  gossip  together  over 
our  childhood.  We  did  so,  apropos  of  the  notion 
already  started,  that  childhood  is  the  only  time 
when  it  was  necessary  business — this  going  out  to 
play. 

We  were  not  city  children,  thank  goodness!  We 
never  had  to  be  muffled  as  to  the  bodies,  denuded 
as  to  the  legs,  our  heads  weighed  down  by  beauti- 
ful hats  and  feathers,  our  feet  compressed  into  the 
nattiest  of  boots,  and  sent  out  walking,  solemnly  and 
genteelly,  through  streets  and  squares.  I  am  proud 
to  say  ours  was  a  very  different  costume.  It  con- 
sisted of  a  pinafore  of  common  blue  print,  made  aft- 
er the  pattern  of  a  French  blouse,  put  on  over  all 
our  other  clothes,  fastened  at  the  waist  by  a  leather 
C 


50  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

belt,  and  reaching  nearly  to  the  ankles;  which,  in 
boys  and  girls  alike,  were  defended  by  stout  shoes, 
merino  stockings,  and  those  substantial  under-vest- 
ments  which  we  were  then  not  ashamed  to  call 
"trowsers."  Some  light  head-gear,  cloth  cap  or 
straw  hat,  was  the  only  addition  necessary  to  the 
universal  all-covering  bine  pinafore. 

O  sacred  blue  pinafore! — so  warm,  light,  and 
comfortable — put  off  or  on  in  a  minute — allowing 
full  liberty  to  run,  jump,  climb,  scramble,  or  crawl, 
creating  a  sublime  indifference  to  dirt  or  tears — 
that  is,  fractures — I  have  never  seen  any  modern 
garment  appropriated  to  childrenrs  wear  which 
could  at  all  be  compared  to  this  costume  of  my 
youth. 

In  it  attired  we  went  out  to  play.  Our  play- 
place  was  the  garden,  the  green,  and  the  great  field 
before  the  terrace  where  we  lived :  there  was  a  ta- 
booed region  beyond,  consisting  of  the  parade  and 
the  public  walks,  where  we  were  not  allowed  to  go 
in  our  blue  pinafores ;  but  within  the  'above  limits 
nobody  and  nothing  interfered  with  us.  On  the 
green,  ball-practice — not  bullets — against  a  gable- 
end,  tip-cap,  trap-bat,  prisoners'  base,  cricket,  mar- 
bles, were  carried  on ;  likewise  digging  of  holes  and 
making  of  bonfires.  The  garden  had  its  restric- 
tions, especially  at  the  season  of  growing  vegeta- 
bles, though  I  remember  a  rhubarb-bed  which  mys- 
teriously withered  in  consequence  of  a  secret  exca- 


GOING   OUT  TO   PLAY!  51 

vation  being  made  under  it;  and  an  ash-tree,  which, 
being  built  into  the  chimney  of  a  hut,  where  there 
was  a  fire  and  a  good  deal  of  gunpowder  used,  was 
by  next  spring  sensibly  affected  in  its  robustness 
of  constitution — indeed,  I  believe  it  ever  afterward 
declined  to  put  out  a  single  leaf. 

But  these  things  were  trifles ;  so  also  were  a  few 
prohibitions  concerning  the  field,  when  it  happened 
to  be  knee-deep  in  mud  or  snow,  or  filled  with  three 
hundred  head  of  cattle  which  periodically  visited  it; 
for  the  poor  burgesses  of  that  place  have  enjoyed 
from  time  immemorial  the  right  of  successive  pas- 
turage in  the  three  or  four — I  forget  how  many — 
large  town-fields. 

When  they  came  to  ours,  what  a  jubilee  it  was! 
To  be  wakened  by  a  distant  murmur  of  lowing, 
neighing,  shouting,  trampling ;  to  dart  to  the  win- 
dow, and  see  with  sleepy  eyes,  in  the  gray  dawn, 
our  field  covered,  not  with  daisies  and  buttercups 
— these  floral  delights  must  be  sacrificed  forthwith 
— but  with  a  moving  multitude,  equine,  bovine,  as- 
inine, and  gradually  with  countless  milk-maids  and 
milking-men,  carrying  their  pails  or  sitting  peace- 
fully leaning  against  well-behaved  cows. 

After  then,  no  want  of  a  place  to  play  in.  We 
used  to  get  dressed  by  six  A.M.,  leap  the  ditch- 
bank,  mug  in  hand,  to  have  it  filled  direct  from  the 
cow — not  any  cow,  but  our  own  particular  animal ; 
for  we  chose  favorites,  whose  proceedings  we  watch- 


52  STUDIES   FEOM    LIFE, 

ed,  and  to  whom  we  gave  names — Daisy,  Brownie, 
Cowslip,  and  the  like — and  over  whom  we  were  ex- 
ceedingly jealous.  Woe  be  to  the  individual  who 
presumed  to  go  for  a  pennyworth  of  milk  to  any 
body  else's  cow!  or,  still  worse,  who  dared  insult 
any  but  his  or  her  own  lawful  cows  with  what  we 
were  particularly  fond  of  doing — namely,  stirring 
them  up,  and  squatting  down  on  the  circle  of  warm- 
ed and  perfumy  grass  where  they  had  been  lying 
all  night. 

The  other  animals  we  patronized  little,  though 
occasionally  it  was  fun  to  run  after  an  infant  don- 
key, or  come  stealthily  behind  some  drowsy  old 
mare,  and  twitch  a  hair  or  two,  invaluable  for  fish- 
ing purposes,  out  of  her  long  tail.  Strange  to  say,  I 
do  not  remember  our  ever  coming  to  harm,  though, 
with  the  mixed  cautiousness  arid  fearlessness  of 
country-bred  children,  we  used  to  roam  among 
these  beasts  all  day  over  as  long  as  they  staid. 
And  we  were  inconsolable — for  at  least  an  hour — 
when,  starting  up  as  usual  to  give  a  morning  glance 
at  our  favorites,  we  would  find  the  well-cropped 
field  all  brown,  bare,  and  desolate — the  cattle  were 
gone! 

Once,  and  only  once,  the  great  field  was  made 
into  hay.  The  novelty  of  the  thing — the  beauty 
of  acres  upon  acres  of  waving,  flowery  grass,  the 
exquisite  perfume  when  it  was  down,  and  the  ex- 
citement during  the  whole  of  hay-time — lasting  a 


GOING  OUT  TO   PLAY.  53 

good  while,  for  I  remember  one  end  of  the  field  was 
green  again  before  the  other  was  mown — makes 
that  summer  one  of  the  most  vivid  points  in  our 
juvenile  history.  Its  daily  joys,  being  holiday  joys, 
were  only  bounded  by  the  terrible  necessity  of  hav- 
ing to  go  to  bed. 

Even  now  a  recollective  pang  affects  me  as  I 
think  how  dreadful  it  was  to  be  "fetched  in"  on 
those  lovely  summer  nights ;  how  we  envied  those 
"poor"  children  on  the  green,  who,  probably  hav- 
ing no  particular  bed  to  go  to,  were  never  sent  to 
bed  at  all ;  how  intolerable  was  the  tyranny  of  be- 
ing carried  off  up  stairs,  undressed  in  broad  day- 
light, and  expected  to  go  to  sleep — which  expect- 
ation (I  must  confess)  was  generally  fulfilled  in  five 
minutes.  Nevertheless,  we  rebelled  against  the 
principle  of  the  proceeding,  and  kept  up  for  years 
a  fondly  cherished  dream  of  contriving  to  play  out 
of  doors  all  night  long,  and  never  go  to  bed  at  all. 

And  once  with  this  intent  we  laid  a  well-arranged 
plot,  which,  for  the  moral  safety  of  any  young  read- 
er, I  beg  to  state,  proves  that,  like  most  children,  we 
were  extremely  naughty  at  times. 

We  thought,  if  we  could  only  lie  quiet  and  keep 
broad  awake  till  all  the  household  were  asleep,  we 
might  steal  down  stairs,  grope  through  the  kitchen, 
unbolt  the  back  door,  and  so  away — out  to  play 
when  there  was  nobody  about  but  ourselves — out 
under  the  stars,  or  obeying  that  summons,  which, 


64  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

to  my  mind,  still  conjures  up  a  dream  of  unattained 
bliss,  which  haunted  at  least  a  dozen  years  of  my 
childhood — 

"The  moon  doth  shine  as  bright  as  day; 
Boys  and  girls,  come  out  to  play : 
Come  with  a  rattle,  and  come  with  a  call; 
Come  with  a  good  will,  or  come  not  at  all." 

For  the  furtherance  of  this  plan,  we  determined 
to  go  to  bed  in  our  clothes.  How  we  managed  it  I 
now  forget — whether  we  generously  came  in  with- 
out being  "fetched,"  and  volunteered  to  put  our- 
selves to  bed,  or  tried  some  other  ruse  calculated  to 
throw  dust  into  eyes  that  were  aching  with  many 
cares  never  understood  till  little  boys  and  girls  grow 
up  to  be  fathers  and  mothers — but  we  certainly  did 
manage  it.  To  prevent  discovery,  we  put  on,  out- 
side all  our  day  clothes,  our  innocent-looking  night- 
gowns, and  lay  down  to  sleep  as  quiet  as  mice  and 
as  good  as  gold. 

But  fate  was  against  us,  as  against  most  conspir- 
ators. Maternal  surveillance — missing  the  afore- 
said clothes,  including  the  boys'  boots,  which  were 
safe  on  their  feet,  also  a  little  surprised  at  our  all 
appearing  so  very  fat  in  bed — proceeded  to  investi- 
gate. Alas !  we  were  ignominiously  discovered, 
and  made  to  undress  and  go  to  bed  properly  like 
good  children.  And  though,  since  then,  we  have 
each  and  all  of  us  kept  many  a  night-watch,  sleep- 
ing roofless  under  foreign  stars,  or  seeing  the  En- 


GOING  OUT  TO   PLAY.  55 

glish  dawn  break  mournfully  from  sick-room  win- 
dows, never,  never  have  we  been  among  the  num- 
ber of  those  fortunate  little  boys  and  girls  who  carne 
out  to  play  when  the  moon  did  "shine  as  bright  as 
day.'7 

But  once,  on  a  birthday,  we  obtained  permission 
to  rise  early  enough  to  go  out  and  play  by  starlight. 
Well  do  I  remember  the  look  of  that  chilly  Novem- 
ber morning,  the  brightness  of  the  stars,  the  intense 
blackness  of  the  trees,  the  solitude  of  the  terrace  and 
the  road ;  how  hard  we  tried  to  persuade  ourselves 
that  it  was  very  pleasant,  and  that  we  enjoyed  every 
thing  very  much.  Our  chief  proceeding,  in  defi- 
ance of  numb  fingers  and  tingling  toes,  was  to  gather 
laurel  in  order  to  make  a  crown  for  the  hero  of  the 
day,  who,  protesting  it  was  "cold"  and  "spidery," 
declined  putting  it  on  his  head,  and  suggested  plac- 
ing it  on  the  top  of  the  pump.  There  for  weeks  we 
watched  it  dangle — watched  it  dolefully  from  be- 
hind nursery  windows,  where,  shut  up  with  whoop- 
ing-cough, we  spent  the  rest  of  the  winter ;  but  still 
protesting — as  even  yet  we  protest — (all  save  one, 
whose  birthday  now  passes  by,  outwardly  unkept, 
and  whose  fair-haired  head  has  long  since  been  laid 
down  in  peace,  without  any  laurel-crown) — that  we 
would  not,  on  any  account,  have  missed  that  "going 
out  to  play"  under  the  November  stars. 

Our  play  was  sometimes  exceedingly  hard  work. 
I  laugh  now  to  call  to  mind  the  extraordinary  cle- 


56  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

light  there  used  to  be  in  digging  a  hole ;  not  for 
any  purpose  or  after  any  design,  but  simply  digging 
a  hole.  We  would  be  at  it  for  entire  days  with  a 
perseverance  worthy  of  Cornish  miners  or  Austra- 
lian gold-hunters.  If  our  labor  had  any  aim  at  all, 
it  was  that  of  digging  till  we  came  to  water,  which 
not  unfrequently  happened,  and  then  our  hole  be- 
came a  pond.  Once,  after  hearing  of  the  central 
fire,  we  started  the  idea  of  digging  down  in  search 
of  it,  and  burrowed  several  feet  deep,  when,  finding 
the  earth  no  warmer,  we  gave  up  our  project.  We 
never  made  any  particular  use  of  our  holes  except 
to  sit  in  them  occasionally,  enthroned  on  brick-ends 
and  pieces  of  stone  from  the  neighboring  quarry,  ex- 
ceedingly proud  and  happy,  though  slightly  damp 
and  uncomfortable. 

But  toward  the  5th  of  November,  the  great  epoch 
in  our  year,  we  ceased  to  dig  and  began  to  build. 
Our  architecture  was  at  first  very  simple,  consisting 
merely  of  a  few  bricks,  so  placed  as  to  keep  off  the 
wind  from  our  bonfire.  From  that  we  planned 
seats  round  it,  where  we  might  watch  our  potatoes 
roast  and  light  our  crackers  at  ease.  Then,  after 
reading  Cooper's  novels,  and  George  Lillie  Craik's 
New  ZealanderSj  a  book  which  was  long  our  prime 
delight,  we  conceived  the  bold  idea  of  erecting  a 
sort  of  wigwam.  Several  were  attempted  and  fail- 
ed ;  the  last,  which  lingers  in  most  vivid  recollec- 
tion, is  that  one,  before  mentioned,  of  which  the 
chimney  was  formed  by  the  ill-fated  mountain  ash. 


GOING   OUT   TO    PLAY.  57 

Aladdin's  palace  was  nothing  to  this  wonder  of 
architecture.  Its  site  was  in  a  triangular  corner 
where  two  walls  joined;  its  other  walls  were  built 
of  quarry-stones  and  earth.  Its  roof  had  proper 
beams — old  pea-sticks,  or,  as  we  called  them,  "pea- 
rice" — an(j  Was  slated  over  with  thin  stones.  There 
was  a  chimney,  with  two  seats  in  the  chimney- 
corner,  quite  proper  and  domestic,  save  that  in  these 
seats  or  any  other  you  never  could  get  farther  than 
eighteen  inches  from  the  fire,  and  that  the  smoke 
obstinately  persisted  in  going  out  any  where  except 
by  the  chimney. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  a  magnificent  house,  imper- 
vious to  wind  and  rain  exqept  on  very  bad  days. 
In  it  we  spent  our  holiday  afternoons  for  many 
weeks,  being  obliged  to  rush  out  at  intervals  to 
clear  our  eyes,  mouths,  and  noses  from  the  smoke, 
and  to  cool  ourselves  after  being  nearly  as  well 
roasted  as  our  own  potatoes :  still,  I  repeat,  it  was  a 
magnificent  dwelling.  It  finally,  like  all  earthly 
mansions,  fell  into  decay ;  the  last  thing  I  remem- 
ber of  it  being  that  one  of  our  boys,  executing  a 
hornpipe  on  the  roof  in  order  to  dance  it  down, 
saw,  to  his  horror,  emerging  from  the  procumbent 
ruins  a  school-fellow,  who  had  been  sitting  by  the 
hearth,  and  now  shook  himself  composedly,  put  on 
his  cap,  and  walked  away,  perfectly  safe  and  sound. 
Truly  children,  like  cats,  have  nine  lives. 

These  were  winter  pleasures.  In  those  days, 
C  2 


58  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

what  a  grand  event  was  the  first  frost,  which  I 
have  known  come  as  early  as  the  9th  of  Novem- 
ber— "  mayor-choosing-day,"  or  "  clouting-out-day" 
— which,  by  an  old  town  custom,  was  the  very  sat- 
urnalia of  play.  All  the  children  in  every  school 
or  private  house  were  "  clouted  out"  by  a  body  of 
young  revolutionists,  armed  with  "clouts" — knotted 
ropes — with  which  they  battered  at  school-doors 
till  the  delighted  prisoners  were  set  free.  Woe  be 
to  the  master  or  mistress  who  refused  the  holiday, 
for  there  would  not  have  been  a  whole  pane  left  in 
the  school-room  windows ;  and  I  doubt  if  even  his 
worship,  the  new  mayor,  would  have  dared  to  fly 
in  the  face  of  public  opinion  by  punishing  any 
"  clouter-out." 

Our  next  era  was  "when  the  canal  bore" — which 
meant,  when  that  famous  piece  of  water,  our  Thames, 
our  Rhine,  our  Loch  Lomond,  our  Lake  Superior, 
was  hard  enough  for  skating;  when  we  could  actu- 
ally walk  on  foot  across  those  depths,  sacred  to  boat- 
sailing  and  fishing,  and  kick  our  heels  against  the 
clumps  of  frozen  water-grass,  which  had  wrecked 
many  a  bold  ship  (constructed  out  of  a  bit  of  hard 
deal,  and  three  long  brimstone  matches — it  was  be- 
fore the  age  of  lucifers),  and  harbored  many  a  gud- 
geon, swimming  away  with  our  unfortunate  hook 
in  his  mouth — sorely  lamented  by  us,  but  not,  I 
fear,  on  account  of  the  gudgeon. 

Well  knew  we  every  inch  along  the  canal  banks 


GOING  OUT  TO   PLAY.  59 

— up  to  the  big  stones,  where  the  skaters  used  to 
sit  tying  on  their  skates,  and  the  timid  lookers-on 
stand  watching  the  two  beautiful  slides  that  were 
always  made  right  across  the  canal  basin.  We  had 
never  heard  then  of  Webster,  R.  A. ;  but  his  famous 
"Slide'7  in  the  Art-Treasures  Exhibition  brought 
back  to  me,  as  it  must  have  done  to  thousands  more, 
those  glorious  frosts  of  old,  when  we  were  out  at 
play  from  daylight  till  dusk,  as  merry  as  crickets 
and  as  warm  as  "  toasts" — barring  our  noses,  toes, 
and  finger-ends ;  running  in  at  noon  for  a  scrap  of 
dinner,  which  we  gobbled  up  as  fast  as  possible — 
bless  us !  we  had  the  digestion  of  young  ostriches ; 
and  were  off  again  instanter.  For  who  could  tell  ? 
it  might  be  a  thaw  to-morrow. 

In  one  thaw  after  a  long  frost,  we,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  lawful  authority,  performed  a  feat  which 
under  no  other  circumstances  could  have  happened, 
and  which,  in  its  daring  originality,  still  gives  us  a 
degree  of  naughty  satisfaction.  We  discovered  that 
the  canal  opposite  a  coal-wharf  had  been  broken  up 
by  boats  into  large  blocks  of  ice,  which  still  went 
floating  about.  One  of  us,  who  had  unluckily  been 
presented  with  a  volume  of  Arctic  Voyages,  em- 
barked on  the  nearest  of  these  icebergs,  and  went 
floating  about,  guiding  his  course  by  the  aid  of  a 
long  pole.  Of  course,  there  were  soon  half  a  dozen 
more  imitating  him.  Oh  the  delight  of  that  sail,  in 
its  total  ignoring  of  danger,  its  indifference  to  ship- 


60  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

wreck,  and  cool  enjoyment  of  submersion !  One  of 
the  voyagers  still  tells  with  pride  that  he  "got  in" 
up  to  the  neck  three  times  that  afternoon,  the  only 
termination  of  which  was  his  being  obliged  to  go 
to  bed,  because  the  whole  of  his  available  wardrobe 
was  hanging  to  dry  by  the  kitchen  fire. 

Nothing  worse  happened,  much  as  it  might  have 
been  deserved.  And  if  that  handful  of  foolhardy 
lads — one  or  two  of  whom,  chancing  to  read  this, 
may  call  to  mind  that  very  afternoon's  play — could 
be  gathered  together  now,  out  of  India,  China,  Aus- 
tralia, from  happy  paternal  English  homes,  and  quiet 
graves,  where  the  solitary  name,  left  behind  to  nei- 
ther wife  nor  child,  moulders  away  upon  the  forgot- 
ten headstone,  happy  they  if  they  could  plead  guilty 
to  no  freak  more  perilous,  no  delirium  of  pleasure 
more  fatal  than  the  sailing  on  those  icebergs  across 
our  old  canal. 

But,  reflecting  on  these  facts  of  our  childhood — 
though  we  were  brought  up  with  at  least  as  much 
care  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  middle-class  children  gen- 
erally— recalling  our  daily  risks  of  life  and  limb,  and 
moral  contamination — though  this  latter  was  small 
peril,  as  it  is  to  all  who  have  the  safeguard  of  a  good 
and  innocent  home,  and  yet  remembering  what  a 
boundless  enjoyment,  what  a  vital  necessity  was  to 
us  this  going  out  to  play,  we  can  not  but  ponder 
deeply  on  the  lot  of  those  other  children  whom  we 
to  envy  for  being  allowed  to  play  any  where 


GOING   OUT   TO   PLAY.  61 

and  any  how,  without  being  called  in  to  the  inter- 
ruption of  meals  or  the  ignominy  of  bed.  "  Poor" 
children — as,  with  genteel  accentuation  of  the  ad- 
jective, Dickens's  Miss  Mm/fathers  terms  them — we 
have  come  to  think  differently  of  them  now.  Not 
exactly  for  their  poverty — hunger  is  sauce  to  any 
fare  short  of  no  fare  at  all,  and  dirt  makes  a  capital 
substitute  for  clothes.  Except  in  the  very  depth  of 
destitution,  it  is  rarely  the  children  who  suffer  most, 
at  least  consciously.  Nevertheless,  we  view  them 
with  a  full  heart.  We  wonder  how,  in  cities  espe- 
cially, they  ever  manage  to  arrive  at  maturity ;  or, 
so  surviving,  and  blessed  with  their  due  share  of 
limbs  and  bodily  faculties,  we  marvel  that  they  do 
not  all  turn  out  thieves,  rogues,  sluts — or  worse. 

Dangers  infinite  all  children  must  meet :  it  is  an 
old  saying,  half  true  and  half  profane,  that  Provi- 
dence guards  the  child  and  the  drunkard ;  but  in 
the  former  case  Providence  guards  by  strictly  nat- 
ural means,  namely,  the  exceeding  elasticity  of 
frame,  tenacity  of  life,  and  power  of  eradicating  evil 
by  perpetually  renewed  growth,  which  belongs  to 
all  young  animals.  There  is  no  need  to  double  the 
risks,  as  they  are  doubled  and  trebled  to  poor  peo- 
ple's children — that  class  upon  which  society  de- 
pends mainly  for  health,  labor,  and  industry.  Any 
person  of  common  sense,  during  an  hour's  walk 
along  the  streets  of  London  or  any  large  town,  will 
have  sufficient  evidence  on  this  subject. 


62  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

Now  it  seems  pretty  well  agreed  upon  by  modern 
philanthropists  that  if  we  are  to  mend  the  world  at 
all,  it  must  be  through  the  new  generation,  for  the 
old,  alas !  is  almost  hopeless  -of  improvement.  Be- 
sides, in  the  balance  of  advantages,  it  is  wiser  to 
expend  labor  over  a  young  tree  than  on  one  which, 
toil  as  you  will,  you  can  seldom  straighten  out  of 
the  crookedness  of  years,  or  graft  with  pleasant  fruit 
upon  a  stem  which  has  long  borne  sour.  Still,  we 
are  bound  to  "dig  about  it  and  dung  it,"  as  the  good 
Master  allows ;  but  let  us  not,  for  its  sake,  neglect 
the  growing  trees  which  spring  up  around  us  on 
every  side.  There  is  more  hope  in  ragged,  indus- 
trial, national,  or  even  infant  schools — in  teaching 
establishments  of  every  sort  and  kind,  religions  or 
secular — than  in  all  our  prisons,  work-houses,  re- 
formatories, and  penitentiaries. 

The  great  want  in  this  admirable  movement  for 
the  benefit  of  the  young  is  its  being  almost  exclu- 
sively on  the  mental  improvement  system.  How- 
ever varied  be  the  instruction,  and  the  mode  in 
which  it  is  imparted,  the  chorus  of  it  is  always 
"  Teach— teach— teach." 

Now  children  do  not  need  teaching  every  day 
and  all  day  long,  any  more  than  a  tree  requires 
perpetual  watering,  pruning,  propping,  and  manur- 
ing. Set  it  in  the  ground,  and  let  it  grow  :  it  will 
grow  in  spite  of  you;  and  the  best  and  wisest  thing 
you  can  do  is  to  watch  it  that  it  grows  straightly 


GOING   OUT  TO   PLAY.  63 

and  safely,  defending  it  from  all  noxious  influences, 
but  leaving  it,  in  its  early  season  of  development, 
to  the  dews,  and  sunshine,  and  fresh  air,  and  med- 
dling with  it  as  little  as  possible. 

As  important  as  any  learning,  often  more  so — for 
education  can  be  gained  in  very  mature  life — is  to 
children  that  indispensable  blessing,  play y  safe,  well- 
watched,  and  properly  restricted,  but  freely  allowed 
and  daily  play;  not  doled  out  in  ten-minute  portions 
between  hours  of  lessons,  or  according  to  Miss  Man- 
flathers'  creed  for  "  poor"  children — 

"In  work,  work,  work.     In  work  alway 
Let  their  first  years  be  passed — " 

but  granted  as  an  indispensable  and  very  large  item 
in  their  sum  of  existence.  Poor  little  souls — why 
not  ?  childhood  lasts  but  a  dozen  years  or  so,  at  best. 
As  says  Christophero  Sly, 

"Let  the  world  wag,  we  shall  ne'er  be  younger." 

Perhaps  even  well-to-do  parents  scarcely  think 
enough  of  this  great  necessity  of  play  for  their  lit- 
tle ones,  boys  and  girls  both,  up  to  as  long  a  period 
as  possible,  which  will  be  short  enough  time  with 
most.  Alas!  well  do  I  myself  remember  the  last 
evening  that  ever  I  put  on  my  blue  pinafore  and 
"  went  out  to  play."  However,  of  these  respecta- 
ble fathers  and  mothers  I  am  not  now  speaking, 
but  of  the  fathers  and  mothers- — not  less  tender  and 
scrupulous  often — of  working-people's  children. 


6-i  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

Schools  are  excellent  things;  yet  when  a  child  is 
turned  out  of  school  to  a  home  which  probably  con- 
sists of  only  a  single  room  or  two  rooms — which  la- 
bor and  sickness,  drunkenness  or  want,  make  worse 
than  110  home  at  all — where  does  he  go  to?  To 
play,  of  course  ;  but  where  ?  In  filthy  alleys,  mak- 
ing mud  pies — swimming  boats  along  open  sewers 
— busy  at  hop-scotch  on  pavements,  or  pitch-and- 
toss  at  street-corners — darting  under  horses7  heads 
and  carriage-wheels — exposed  all  day  to  the  police- 
man's collaring,  the  errand-boy's  "whopping,"  and 
half  the  night  to  the  foul-mouthed  "  rows"  which 
take  place  at  gin-palace  doors  —  open,  in  short,  to 
every  sort  and  kind  of  bodily  harm  and  mental  cor- 
ruption. 

You,  fond  and  gentle  lady-mother,  who  send  your 
children  out  for  a  walk,  or  into  the  safe  garden,  un- 
der the  guardianship  of  two  nursery-maids,  on  wet 
days  have  them  for  a  game  in  the  dining-room,  and 
at  eight  o'clock  every  night  go  up  to  kiss  them 
in  their  little  beds,  only  fancy  your  boys  and  girls 
turned  out  for  one  single  day  of  such  a  life  as 
this! 

Can  any  thing  be  done  to  remedy  it — any  thing 
which,  without  detracting  a  jot  from  the  usefulness 
of  schools,  will  provide  for  a  want  which  no  schools 
can  supply  ? 

A  society  lately  started  has  tried  to  answer  this 
question.  It  is  called  "  The  Play-ground  Society," 


GOING  OUT  TO   PLAY.  65 

and  its  object  is  "  to  provide  play-grounds  for  poor 
children  in  populous  places."  Its  originator,  a  be- 
nevolent London  clergyman,  thus  states  how  the 
scheme  arose.  The  paragraph  is  taken  from  a  pri- 
vate letter,  which  for  public  good  there  can  be  no 
objection  to  make  public: 

"  The  immediate  impulse  to  our  society  came 
from  a  little  street  in  my  late  district,  wherein  I 
found  a  woman  '  blowing  up7  some  little  boys  well 
for  making  a  noise  before  her  house.  I  entered 
into  a  conversation  with  her  upon  my  wish  to  have 
a  play-ground  set  apart  for  poor  children  who  had 
no  room  to  play  at  home,  and  must  play  somewhere. 
She  replied  *  that  the  idea  was  a  good  one,  because 
then  they  would  not  trouble  her.1  Feeling,  there- 
fore, that  all  classes  were  to  benefit  by  the  move- 
ment, I  began  to  look  up  friends  to  the  cause,  and 
a  good  many  were  found.  We  hope  to  be  more 
useful  by  assisting  in  the  conveyance  of  sites  than 
by  their  purchase.  We  do  not  propose  to  do  more 
than  procure  the  play-ground,  leaving  the  manage- 
ment to  local  authorities." 

Therefore  the  brief  prospectus  urges  "  support 
from  the  nobility  and  gentry  with  reference  to  the 
towns  and  cities  contiguous  to  their  estates,"  and 
earnestly  invites  such  to  make  "grants  of  land 
which  can  be  legally  conveyed  for  that  purpose." 
We  feel  that  we  are  perhaps  affording  one  chance 
more  to  a  substantial  public  good  in  giving  the  ad- 


66  STUDIES   FROM  LIFE. 

dress  of  this  society — u  17  Bull  and  Mouth  Street, 
St.  Martin's-le-Gran.d,  London."* 

Thus,  with  a  plea  for  play-grounds  and  for  play, 
we  end  these  reminiscences  of  our  play-days,  now 
gone  by  forevermore.  Yet  blessed  are  those  fam- , 
ilies,  however  dwindled  and  separated,  who  are 
bound  together  in  heart  by  remembrances  such  as 
these !  and  blessed  is  the  memory  of  those  parents, 
just,  patient,  forbearing,  and  tender,  who,  however 
tried  (how  sorely  none  find  out  until  taught  by  par- 
enthood themselves),  have,  in  spite  of  all  afflictions 
of  their  own,  given  to  their  offspring  that  blessing, 
which  nothing  afterward  can  take  away,  and  the 
want  of  which  nothing  can  ever  supply,  the  recol- 
lection of  a  happy  childhood. 

*  It  is  scarcely  needful  to  say  that  this  was  a  magazine  article 
written  for  a  particular  purpose.  But  the  author,  feeling  strongly 
on  the  subject,  prefers  leaving  it  exactly  as  it  stands. 


WANT  SOMETHING  TO  BEAD.  67 


11  tUant  gometljutg  to  Bmtr." 

NEXT  to  "  going  out  to  play,"  there  is  nothing  so 
important  to  many  children — most  children,  I  may 
say — as  having  something  to  read.  After  a  certain 
age,  and  the  attainment  of  a  certain  amount  of 
scholarship,  almost  every  child  begins  to  "  read  to 
itself" — possibly  not  omnivorously — sometimes  to 
a  very  small  extent.  But  a  child  who  does  not 
read  at  all,  and  does  not  like  any  sort  of  reading, 
is  almost  an  anomaly  nowadays,  at  least  among 
what  we  proudly  term  "  the  educated  classes." 

It  is  curious  to  trace  the  rise,  progress,  and  de- 
velopment of  this  branch  of  education,  informal  and 
unconscious,  yet  which,  more  than  any  others,  in- 
fluences the  mind,  character,  and  disposition  of  a 
growing-up  child.  I  speak  not  of  prodigies  or  pre- 
cocious geniuses,  but  of  ordinary  boys  and  girls,  just 
waking  up  to  think  about — not  themselves — they 
rarely  trouble  their  little  heads  with  self-contempla- 
tion, and  it  is  a  very  bad  sign  if  they  do — but  the 
wonderful  world  they  have  come  into,  about  which 
their  chief  sentiment  is  an  insatiable  curiosity. 

No  one  can  spend  half  a  day  in  the  company  of 
a  moderately  intelligent  child,  if  only  arrived  at  the 


68  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

age  of  "  What's  dat?"  "  What  zu  doin'?"  without 
remarking  how  extraordinary  a  peculiarity  of  the 
infant  mind  is  this  same  curiosity.  Our  grand- 
mothers tried  to  repress  it;  and  " Little  people 
should  not  want  to  know  every  thing"  —  "Little 
people  should  learn  not  to  ask  questions" — were 
acknowledged  axioms  of  old-fashioned  education ; 
but  we  are  wiser  now.  To  the  contemplative  mind 
there  is  something  solemn,  almost  awful,  in  this  ar- 
dent desire  to  know,  beginning  with  the  six-months- 
old  babe  who  stretches  uncertain  fingers  to  its  moth- 
er's bright  neck-ribbon,  or  screams  because  it  is  not 
allowed  to  catch  hold  of  the  flame  of  the  candle. 

I  have  often  thought  it  might  be  useful  if  people 
would  take  the  trouble  to  recall  and  jot  down  their 
own  experiences  of  this  craving  after  information — 
this  unquenchable-  thirst  to  find  out  the  why  and  be- 
cause of  things,  which  is  only  allayed  by  asking  in- 
cessant questions  or  by  reading  books.  And,  just 
as  one  experience  out  of  many,  which,  by  rousing 
thoughtful  elders  to  reflect  on  their  own  youth,  may 
help  them  to  deal  more  wisely  with  that  mysterious 
piece  of  God's  handiwork,  as  yet  unspoiled  by  man 
--a  child — I  shall  here  set  down  a  few  recollections 
about  our  reading  and  our  books  when  we  were  chil- 
dren. 

In  those  days,  juvenile  literature  was  very  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is  now;  there  were  no  children's 
publishers,  making  it  their  specialty  to  furnish  the 


WANT   SOMETHING  TO   BEAD.  69 

ravenous  youthful  maw  with  the  best  species  of  ali- 
ment, employing  excellent  authors  to  chronicle  Dr. 
Birch  and  his  Young  Friends,  Grandmamma's  Pock- 
ets, and  Good-natured  Bears;  and  illustrating  Cin- 
derella and  the  White  Cat  with  almost  as  good  art 
as  then  adorned  the  walls  of  the  Eoj^al  Academy. 
Even  the  cheap  periodicals  now  littering  about  ev- 
ery house,  and  to  be  picked  up  by  every  child  on 
every  parlor  table,  had  not  then  begun  their  ca- 
reer. No  Illustrated  Neius — no  Punch — no  House- 
hold Words — only  a  few  antique  magazines,  or  an  ac- 
cidental magazine,  chiefly  provincial — for  we  were 
provincial  children — reached  our  eager  hands.  And 
even  this  species  of  fugitive  literature  was  very  lim- 
ited ;  for  we  were  not  rich,  we  had  no  large  domes- 
tic library,  nor  did  we  live  in  a  reading  community, 
I  only  remember  three  houses  where  it  was  delicious 
to  go  to  tea,  because — you  were  sure  of  getting  a 
book  to  read.  But  this  is  forestalling. 

Does  any  one  call  to  mind  his  or  her  first  book  ? 
The  very  first  time  when,  arriving  a  step  above 
c,  a,  t,  cat,  and  d,  o,  g,  dog,  some  strange  volume, 
not  the  spelling-book,  was  taken  in  hand  and  blun- 
dered over,  sticking  at  all  the  hard  words,  which 
were  either  puzzled  out  or  skipped  altogether,  as 
character  or  talents  impelled?  But,  once  fairly  em- 
barked on  the  undertaking,  what  a  wonderful  thing 
it  was!  A  book — something  interesting — some- 
thing which  out  of  its  tame  black  and  white  pages 


70  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

could  afford  us  an  enjoyment,  intangible  certainly, 
involving  nothing  to  eat,  or  drink,  or  play  with,  yet 
an  enjoyment  exquisitely  real,  substantial,  and  sat- 
isfying, such  as  nothing  had  ever  been  before. 

Of  my  first  book  I  have  the  strongest  impression 
still.  It  was  The  Robins,  by  Mrs.  Trimmer,  I  fan- 
cy, but  am  not  sure,  never  having  beheld  it  since 
the  age  of  six.  It  was  lent  me  by  a  playmate  of 
seven,  and,  accompanied  by  the  gift  of  a  little  black 
top.  The  top  I  cherished — whipped  affectionately 
for  years — and  have  it  somewhere  still,  in  memory 
of  a  warm  heart  that  death  only  ever  made  cold. 
But  the  book  I  altogether  slighted,  until,  casually 
opening  it  one  day,  I  found,  with  some  surprise, 
that  I  could  read. 

It  was — for  the  edification  of  those  who  know  it 
not — the  summer's  history  of  a  pair  of  robin-red- 
breasts, taken  from  the  robin  side — in  fact,  what 
I  may  call  the  bird's-eye  view  of  the  subject.  It 
described  all  their  domestic  proceedings,  from  the 
building  of  the  nest  in  the  ivy  wall  to  the  success- 
ive appearance  —  equaling  in  importance  the  ar- 
rival of  "our  baby" — of  four  young  birds,  Eobin, 
Dicky,  Flapsy,  and  Pecksy.  As  I  write  down  their 
names,  how  the  idea  of  them  comes  back,  each  as 
strongly  individualized  as  any  featherless  bipeds  I 
ever  knew.  Eobin,  the  eldest,  a  brave,  generous, 
harum-scarum  bird,  who,  determining  not  to  be 
taught,  but  to  teach  himself  to  fly,  came  to  grief 


WANT   SOMETHING   TO   REAP.  71 

and  a  broken  wing,  was  unable  to  return  to  the 
nest,  and  had  to  subsist  for  the  rest  of  the  summer 
under  a  dock-leaf— a  "  shocking  example" — fondly 
tended  by  his  amiable  sister  Pecksy ;  Dicky  and 
Flapsy — far  less  interesting  characters — who  were 
always  allied  in  both  mischief  and  pleasure,  never 
did  any  thing  either  naughty  or  good ;  and  the  two 
elderly  birds,  exceedingly  moral  and  parental,  who 
nevertheless,  to  my  surprise,  contentedly  turned  the 
young  ones  adrift,  left  the  nest,  and  subsisted  for  the 
winter  on  the  crumbs  of  the  family  who  owned  the 
garden. 

This  family,  portrayed  in  the  frontispiece  with 
enormously  big  faces,  head  et  prceterea  nihil,  look- 
ing in  at  the  nest,  were  quite  secondary  characters 
in  the  story.  The  bird-life  was  all  in  all.  Such  a 
glorious  sense  it  gave  of  the  delight  of  living  un- 
der ivy-leaves,  and  being  fed  with  a  worm  on  a 
bright  summer  morning;  of  learning  to  fly,  and 
then  wandering  at  ease  from  tree  to  tree,  receiving 
occasional  moral  lessons  about  guns,  traps,  and  the 
duty  of  not  robbing  overmuch  the  protecting  fam- 
ily. .  Memory  may  have  exaggerated  and  put  much 
in  the  book  that  was  not  there,  but  the  general  im- 
pression is  ineffaceable.  Even  now,  when  •  every 
morning  I  meet  that  graceful,  gentlemanly  old  rob- 
in, who  looks  at  me  for  a  moment  with  his  shy, 
bright  eye,  and  then  hops  away  under  a  goose- 
berry-bush, I  often  think,  "My  little  friend,  can 


72  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

you  be  any  descendant  of  those  familiar  compan- 
ions of  mine,  far  back  in  distant  ages,  who  lived — 
in  paper  and  printer's  ink,  common  sense  would 
say,  but  to  me  it  seems  as  if  they  had  abode,  and 
still  abide,  through  a  summer  that  never  ends,  in  a 
real  garden,  in  a  real  nest  under  an  ivy  wall?" 

The  Robins  must  have  been  our  very  first  era  in 
literature.  Our  next  was  Sinbad  the  Sailor,  Robin- 
son Crusoe,  and  Jack  tlie  Giant-killer :  not  elegantly 
got  up,  but  coarsely  printed,  in  paper  covers,  with 
"cuts"  instead  of  " plates."  Extraordinary  cuts 
some  of  them  were,  as,  seeing  one  of  the  same  edi- 
tions lately,  I  found  out.  Vividly  it  recalled  all 
the  rest:  Crusoe  seeing  the  footprints  in  the  sand, 
Crusoe  and  his  man  Friday ;  Sinbad  carried  up  by 
the  roc,  Sinbad  put  into  the  open  coffin  and  let  down 
into  the  funereal  cave ;  also  Jack,  sitting  genteelly 
at  table  with  the  ugliest  of  giants,  who  it  was  half 
feared  might  "frighten"  us;  but,  bless  you!  we 
were  never  frightened  at  any  thing  of  that  sort. 
We  had  no  nursemaid  to  tell  us  horrible  tales  of 
"Bogie"  and  the  "Black  Man;"  all  we  ever  heard 
or  learned  for  the  early  years  of  our  lives  came  di- 
rect from  the  fountain-head — the  fountain  of  all 
tenderness,  and  safety,  and  loving-kindness ;  whose 
incessant  guardianship  made,  in  this,  our  poverty 
more  blessed  than  if  we  had  been  heirs  to 

"  All  the  wealth  that  fills  the  breeze 
When  Coromandcl's  ships  return  from  Indian  s?as:" 


WANT   SOMETHING  TO   READ.  73 

which  reminds  me  that  in  our  earlier  days  we 
thought  very  little  of  poetry.  Nobody  ever  both- 
ered us  with  Dr.  Watts's  hymns  and  the  like,  nor 
crammed  our  poor  little  brains  with  cant  words  and 
phrases,  of  which  the  ideas  were  either  totally  in-  v 
comprehensible,  or  received  in  a  form  so  material 
as  to  be  either  ludicrous  or  profane.  Accidentally 
we  lighted  on  "The  Busy  Bee,"  "Hush,  my  Babe, 
lie  still,  and  slumber,"  took  a  fancy  to  them,  and 
learned  them  by  heart;  also,  many  of  the  Original 
Poems  for  Children,  which  have  been  the  delight  of 
more  than  one  generation.  But  we  never  meddled 
with  religious  poetry,  nor  were  set  to  learn  it  as  a 
task  any  more  than  the  Bible — the  book  of  books — 
which  we  all  read  aloud  reverently,  verse  by  verse, 
elders  and  youngers  alternately,  every  Sunday  even- 
ing. 

For  our  secular  reading,  out  of  lesson-tirne,  we 
were  obliged  to  depend  on  ourselves.  The  treat 
of  being  read  to  was  quite  impossible  in  our  busy 
household.  Therefore,  possessing  what  is  now  call- 
ed, in  grand  phrase,  ua  healthy  animalism,"  which 
I  take  to  mean  the  ordinary  sanitary  state  of  most 
children  who  are  neither  physicked  nor  "  coddled," 
we  gave  the  largest  portion  of  our  energies  to  play, 
and,  with  the  exceptions  mentioned,  were  rather  in- 
different to  books.  Gradually,  however — on  wet 
days  and  long  winter  evenings — we  began  to  want 
something  to  read — something  real ;  for  we  were 
D 


74  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

wakening  up  to  the  conviction  that  rocs  were  not 
as  common  as  sparrows,  and  that  the  Liliputian 
which  some  of  us  longed  to  find,  and  be  a  most 
loving  Glumdalclitch  to,  was 'not  likely  to  be  pick- 
ed up  in  our  field,  or  any  field.  In  short,  we  wanted 
facts. 

And  here  came  in  a  book,  which  I  have  since 
suspected  to  be  as  fabulous  as  Robinson  Crusoe  it- 
self, but  which  then  we  entirely  credited — Roland?* 
Travels  Round  the  World.  Its  hero,  with  his  com- 
panions— the  naturalist,  the  man  of  science,  and  the 
doctor — who,  I  recollect,  had  a  most  nnmedical  pro- 
pensity for  eating— with  all  their  adventures,  were 
an  inexhaustible  delight.  Earnestly  we  longed  to 
penetrate  to  the  interior  of  that  marvelous  Africa, 
the  map  of  which,  so  often  consulted  by  us  prior 
to  the  days  of  lion-hunting  Cummings,  persevering 
brothers  Lander,  and  modest  brave  Livingstones, 
was,  except  for  the  coast-line,  a  mere  blank,  a  cir- 
cumstance probably  all  the  better  for  our  not  too 
veracious  KolandL 

Another  book  of  adventure,  which  likewise  I 
have  never  seen  since,  and  which  maturer  wisdom 
is  still  loth  to  recognize  as  fiction,  was  Miss  Porter's 
Narrative  of  Sir  Edward  Seaward.  Strange  that  no 
enterprising  modern  publisher*  has  ever  disinterred 
and  revived  in  a  cheap  edition  this  charming  old 

*  I  have  since  heard  that  this  has  been  done  in  Bonn's  "  Trav- 
eler's Library." 


WANT   SOMETHING   TO   READ.  75 

book,  with  its  bona  fide  simplicity  of  detail,  its  ex- 
quisite picture  of  the  solitary  island  where  Seaward 
and  his  Eliza  are  wrecked,  and  live  a  la  Crusoe — 
and  Mrs.  Crusoe — during  the  first  years  of  their 
married  life ;  where  they  afterward  found  a  colony ; 
then,  returning  to  England,  bask  in  the  favor  of 
King  George  and  Queen  Caroline ;  finally  becom- 
ing Sir  Edward  and  Lady  Seaward,  though  some- 
thing less  happy,  as  the  reader  feels,  than  the  young 
pair  cast  away  on  that  lovely,  lonely  Pacific  island. 

The  Pacific  seas  gained  another  charm  for  us 
when  somewhat  about  this  era  we  lighted  on  G.  L. 
Craik's  New  Zealanders.  Every  many-voweled  poly- 
syllabic name,  every  grim  countenance  therein,  was 
familiar  to  us  as  the  names  and  faces  of  our  com- 
panions. Much  we  lamented  that  tattoo  and  paint, 
mats  and  war-clubs,  were  not  the  customary  cos- 
tume of  youthful  Britons ;  and  to  live  in  a  hut,  and 
squat  round  a  baked  pig,  seemed  to  us  preferable 
to  any  civilized  notions  about  houses  and  dinners. 
As  it  was,  the  sole  thing  left  to  us  was  to  practice 
drinking  out  of  a  calabash,  holding  the — not  cala- 
bash, alas!  but — mug  high  up,  at  arm's  length,  in 
the  approved  New  Zealand  fashion.  I  should  be 
sorry  to  confess  how  many  times  we  soaked  our 
pinafores  through  and  through  before  this  art  was 
attained  in  perfection. 

Captain  Cook's  Voyages,  and  his  Geography,  in 
two  thick  quartos,  with  maps  and  engravings  innu- 


76  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

merable,  came  in  also  to  confirm  the  mania  for  all 
things  pertaining  to  the  southern  seas,  which  last- 
ed a  long  time,  and  may  have  influenced  the  fam- 
ily fortunes  more  than  was  then  dreamed  of.  To 
this  day,  both  to  those  of  us  who  have  seen  it  and 
those  who  have  not,  there  lingers  a  curious  charm 
about  that  antipodean  hemisphere,  with  its  strange 
plants,  strange  animals,  strange  stars,  strange  skies ; 
its  mysterious  half-known  continents,  and  its  solita- 
ry coral  islands  starting  up  from  the  depths  of  un- 
discovered seas. 

This  was  our  sole  bit  of  romance.  Compared 
with  what  I  have  since  heard  of  other  people's  child- 
hood, ours  seems  to  have  been  the  most  matter-of- 
fact  imaginable.  We  lived  in  a  new  manufactur- 
ing district,  where  was  not  a  trace  of  legendary  lore; 
and  we  must  have  been  quite  "old"  children  before 
we  ever  heard  about  ghosts  or  fairies.  Also,  our 
elders  and  superiors,  though  extremely  well  educa- 
ted, happened  to  have  a  far  stronger  bias  toward 
science,  mathematics,  and  general  solid  knowledge 
than  toward  art  or  the  poetical  side  of  literature. 
The  first  bit  of  real  art  I  ever  remember  to  have 
got  hold  of  was  Flaxman's  Homer — beloved  still  as 
the  key-note  of  what  has  been  the  pleasant  music 
of  a  lifetime ;  but  I  am  now  writing  of  books,  not 
pictures.  It  stirred  me  up  to  the  study  of  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey:  these  two,  with  Thomson's  Seasons 
and  Young's  Night  Thoughts,  after  I  had  conquered 


WANT   SOMETHING   TO   READ.  77 

a  great  dislike  to  the  frontispiece,  representing  a 
gentleman  sitting  at  night  in  his  study,  and  Death, 
a  skeleton  with  scythe  and  hour-glass,  coming  to 
hold  with  him  a  little  cheerful  conversation,  consti- 
tute the  only  poetry  books  of  which  I  have  any  dis- 
tinct recollection. 

Nobody  else  studied  them ;  the  family  bent  was 
all  toward  science.  Many  books  of  this  era  come 
to  mind:  Endless  Amusements,  which  would  have 
deserved  its  name  with  us  save  for  the  unfortunate 
fact  that  the  experiments  therein  were  quite  imprac- 
ticable for  want  of  capital ;  the  Boy's  Oivn  Book,  and 
the  Boy's  Book  of  Science.  This  latter  was  thumbed 
over  from  morning  till  night — as  may  be  discover- 
ed if  its  relics  be  ever  exhumed  for  the  benefit  of 
its  owner's  descendants — but  I  myself  never  got 
farther  than  the  illustrations,  which  were  very  pret- 
ty and  artistic,  and  consisted  of  little  fat  nude  boys 
busy  over  a  blow-pipe,  or  an  electrical  machine,  or 
a  series  of  mysterious  phials.  I  admired  them  much, 
but  thought  the  little  fellows  looked  rather  cold,  and 
wondered  if  it  were  always  necessary  to  conduct  sci- 
entific experiments  without  one's  clothes. 

At  this  period  we  took  to  book-borrowing,  in 
which  our  chief  trouble  was  that  benevolent  friends 
would  persist  in  lending  us  "childish"  books.  One 
of  us,  the  little  one,  still  recalls  having  Sandford  and 
Merton  thus  foisted  upon  him,  which  he  indignantly 
rejected ;  when,  being  told  to  go  and  choose  what 


78  STUDIES   FROM  LIFE. 

he  liked,  he  returned  with  Brande's  Chemistry,  Mrs. 
Marcet's  Conversations,  lire's  Dictionary  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  or  something  else  of  the  kind,  which  alone 
he  considered  "  interesting." 

To  this  cause  I  attribute  our  indifference  to  Miss 
Edgeworth,  Mrs.  Barbauld,  and  other  excellent  writ- 
ers for  children — that  we  read  them  at  too  late  an 
age,  when  we  wanted  to  know  about  men,  women, 
and  things  in  general.  Thus  I  remember  luxuri- 
ating in  Goldsmith's  dry  school  histories ;  having 
a  personal  friendship  for  Themistocles  and  Epami- 
nondas,  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  all  the  old  Ro- 
mans, and  a  passionate  pity  for  Charles  I.,  which 
made  me  dream  over  and  over  again,  for  years,  of 
his  taking  refuge  in  our  house,  my  putting  him  into 
the  cupboard  or  up  the  chimney,  then  dismissing 
him  to  safety  with  an  infinitude  of  blessings,  caress- 
es, and  tears.  After  such  a  romance  as  this,  what 
to  me  were  Harry  and  Lucy,  Rosamond,  and  the 
Parents*  Assistant  ? 

To  one  writer  of  this  class,  now  almost  forgotten, 
I  must  make  an  exception.  Few  books  in  all  my 
life  have  ever  done  me  so  much  good — the  true  aim 
of  all  good  books — as  Mrs.  Holland's.  Simple,  nat- 
ural, neither  dragging  the  young  mind  down  to  its 
supposed  level,  which  it  has  already  got  far  beyond, 
nor  burdening  it  with  dry  morality,  or,  what  is 
worse,  religious  cant,  yet  breathing  throughout  the 
true  spirit  both  of  religion  and  morality,  her  stories 


WANT   SOMETHING   TO   READ.  79 

for  young  people,  such  as  the  Clergyman's  Widow, 
Blind  Farmer,  and  Son  of  a  Genius,  deserve  to  live 
as  long  as  there  are  any  young  people  to  read  them. 
Writers  for  children  are  too  apt  to  forget  how  un- 
commonly "sharp"  is  the  little  public  with  which 
they  have  to  deal ;  how,  whatever  be  its  own  vol- 
untary make-believes,  it  is  quick  as  lightning  to  de- 
tect and  spurn  any  make-believe  in  grown-up  peo- 
ple, especially  when  meant  to  take  in  its  small  self. 
Hypocritical  goodness  or  impossible  self-denial  it 
rejects  at  once,  as  it  does  pictures  of  life  where  the 
moral  is  incessantly  intruding,  where  the  bad  child 
is  always  naughty,  and  the  good  child  never  does 
any  thing  wrong;  where  the  parents  are  paragons 
of  superlative  wisdom  and  faultless  perfection,  and 
every  action,  good  or  bad,  immediately  meets  its  re- 
ward. Such  tales  are  not  of  the  least  value,  because 
they  are  not  like  life ;  a  fact  which  no  one  is  quicker 
to  discover  than  a  quick  child,  who  feels  that  it  is 
itself  both  naughty  and  good  sometimes  within  the 
same  half  hour;  that  its  parents  do  not  know  every 
thing,  are  occasionally  unjust  and  cross;  that  it  often 
does  wrong  unpunished,  and  does  well  unpraised. 
Therefore  beware ;  give  a  child  as  much  of  fancy 
and  imagination  as  ever  you  choose,  in  fairy  tale, 
legend,  and  the  like,  which  it  will  play  with  as  it 
does  with  toys,  and  take  no  harm  from;  but,  in 
Heaven's  name,  respect  in  it  that  instinct  which 
comes  direct  from  Heaven,  and  never,  in  word  or 


80  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

writing,  in  teaching  or  in  conduct,  set  before  it  as 
reality  that  which  is  not  true. 

About  this  stage  in  our  juvenile  history  a  remark- 
able fact  occurred.  Our  next-door  neighbor  began 
taking  in  a  periodical — a  large,  small-printed  folio 
sheet,  with  more  "  reading"  in  it  than  any  newspa- 
per, entitled  Chambers' s  Edinburgh  Journal.  How 
we  used  to  rush  in  on  Saturday  afternoons  to  bor- 
row it,  and  rush  off  again  to  some  corner,  where  it 
could  be  read  in  quiet !  How  we  hid  it,  and  squab- 
bled over  it!  what  tears  it  cost,  what  reproofs!  till 
at  last,  as  the  only  chance  of  peace,  the  Journal  was 
forbidden  ever  to  enter  the  house.  Consequently, 
we  read  it  in  the  garden.  I  am  afraid — I  know— 
we  were  very  naughty ;  but  the  thirst  for  reading 
was  now  becoming  uncontrollable  in  all  of  us.  I 
can  recall,  spite  of  the  guilty  conscience  with  which 
I  handled  this  grand  bone  of  contention,  what  ex- 
quisite delight  there  was  in  hiding  it  under  my  pin- 
afore, or  under  a  big  stone,  till  I  could  devour  it  in 
secret ;  how,  even  yet,  I  can  see  clearly  the  shape, 
form,  and  type  of  some  of  the  articles,  such  as  the 
leader  entitled  "  The  Downdraught,"  and  the  bit  of 
poetry  beginning 

"Pretty  Polly  Partan,  she  was  a  damsel  gay — " 

little,  how  little  thinking  that  I  should  ever  be  con 
fessing  this  in  the  pages  of  the  same  Journal ! 
But  all  this  while,  in  none  of  us  had  germinated, 


WANT   SOMETHING   TO   READ.  81 

in  any  shape,  the  romantic  element.  With  me  it 
first  sprouted,  I  believe,  not  through  any  thing  I 
read,  but  through  being  read  to,  myself  and  my  fa- 
vorite companion,  during  one  summer,  and  at  in- 
tervals during  several  other  summers  and  winters. 
Dim  as  a  dream  are  those  readings,  chosen  wisely 
by  one  who  knew  better  than  most  people  what 
children's  tastes  were,  and  especially  what  sort  of 
tastes  we  two  had.  Fragments  out  of  unknown 
books,  Mary  Hewitt's  poems  and  tales,  Mrs.  Aus- 
ten's German  translations,  Shakspeare,  Scott,  Chau- 
cer— old  ballads  and  modern  verses — a  heteroge- 
neous mixture,  listened  to  on  sunshiny  mornings, 
with  the  rose-scent  in  the  hedges,  and  the  birds 
bopping  about  on  the  grass-plot ;  or  on  winter  even- 
ings, rocking  in  the  American  rocking-chair,  in  the 
snug  little  school-room,  which  neither  we  nor  our 
children  are  ever  likely  to  revisit  more.  Dim  as  a 
dream,  I  say,  but  sweet  as  any  thing  in  my  whole 
childhood,  remains  the  grateful  remembrance  of 
these  readings  and  the  voice  that  read,  which  to 
this  day,  when  enjoying  the  ineffable  luxury  of  sit- 
ting sewing  and  listening  to  a  book,  seems  to  me 
about  the  pleasantest  voice  of  any  woman's  I  ever 
heard. 

The  next  epoch  I  have  to  chronicle  was  the  grand 

turning-point  of  our  childhood — the  literary  crisis 

of  our  lives.     One  fatal  winter,  we,  whose  doors 

sickness  had  rarely  or  never  entered,  caught  suc- 

D2 


82  STUDIES  FKOM  LIFE. 

cessively  measles,  whooping-cough,  and  chicken- 
pox,  and  never  went  out  to  play  again  till  the 
spring.  Then,  shut  up  in  a  few  small  rooms,  wea- 
ry, sickly,  and  cross — not  dangerously  ill,  but  ill 
enough  to  be  a  burden  to  ourselves  and  a  plague  to 
one  another,  what  could  we  do  to  pass  the  heavy 
time  away  ?  What  was  to  become  of  us  ? 

I  really  do  not  know  what  would  have  become 
of  us,  so  far  as  temper  was  concerned,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  interference  of  a  benign  providence  in 
the  shape  of  the  bookseller  of  the  town,  who  granted 
us  free  range  of  his  circulating  library.  To  him 
and  to  his  "young  man" — growing  an  old  man 
now — who  took  the  trouble  of  selecting  our  books, 
changing  them  as  often  or  letting  us  keep  them  as 
long  as  ever  we  liked — who  was  as  patient  and 
good-natured  with  us  poor  sick  children  as  if  we 
had  been  the  grandest  paying  subscribers,  I  hereby 
offer,  should  this  book  lie  on  his  counter,  as  proba- 
bly it  will,  our  warmest  gratitude.  It  may  be  a 
hint  to  other  book-lenders,  less  mindful  of  the  crav- 
ings of  reading  children ;  and  it  is  a  relief  to  our 
minds  thankfully  to  confess  that  much  of  what  any 
of  us  has  ever  been,  or  may  be,  is  owing  to  that 
"  winter  of  our  discontent,"  which  was  made  such 
"glorious  summer"  by  this  unlimited  supply  of 
books. 

What  they  consisted  of  it  is  impossible  to  enu- 
merate. I  know  they  comprised  fact  and  fiction, 


WANT  SOMETHING  TO  HEAD.  83 

provender  solid  and  light,  classical  and  unclassical, 
and  that  their  quantity  was  enormous ;  that  they 
set  us  fairly  afloat  on  the  great  sea  of  literature, 
which  thenceforward  to  us  never  had  a  bound. 

Of  course,  individual  tastes  developed  rapidly. 
Science,  from  a  bias,  became  a  steadily  progressing 
knowledge ;  art,  from  a  mere  fancy,  grew  into  a 
passion ;  and  imaginative  and  romantic  tendencies 
sprung  up  full-grown,  as  it  were,  in  a  day.  Our 
range  of  novel-reading  soon  comprised  every  thing 
we  could  lay  hands  upon :  Scott,  Bulwer,  Mrs.  Opie, 
Miss  Austen,  and  a  writer  whom  we  knew  nothing 
about,  but  that  he  was  almost  as  funny  as  his  name, 
which  was  "  Boz."  I  also  remember  our  picking 
up  the  first  number  of  a  serial  which  we,  already 
beginning  to  be  critical,  considered  rather  dull,  and 
the  characters  decidedly  unpleasant :  it  was  entitled 
Vanity  Fair.  Of  inferior  romances,  the  amount  of 
trash  we  consumed  was  something  past  reckoning; 
but,  like  all  literary  rubbish,  it  slipped  out  of  our 
heads  as  fast  as  ever  it  was  "  shot"  into  them.  We 
never  took  any  harm  from  it  that  I  am  aware  of. 

And  here  I  would  fain  say  a  word  about  our  ex- 
perience of  what  are  termed  "  improper"  books. 
We  never  had  any,  although  we  were  allowed  to 
read  ad  libitum  every  thing  that  came  in  our  way ; 
for  a  very  simple  reason — the  guardians  of  our  mor- 
als put  every  thing  really  hurtful  quite  out  of  our 
way.  No  tabooed  volumes ;  no  pages  torn  out,  nor, 


84  STUDIES   FEOM   LIFE. 

as  I  have  heard  of  an  excellent  paterfamilias  doing, 
marked  in  the  margin,  "Not  to  be  read,"  which 
seems  a  good  deal  to  expect  from  juvenile  self-de- 
nial. Our  elders  never  exacted  from  us  any  thing 
they  did  not  require  from  themselves:  all  literary 
provender  wholly  unfit  for  our  youthful  digestion 
was  either  never  known  by  us  to  be  in  the  house, 
or,  better  still,  was  never  brought  into  the  house  at 
all.  The  only  instance  of  prohibition  or  hesitation 
that  I  ever  remember  was  the  Vicar  of  WaJccfield, 
which  (why  I  can  not  to  this  day  discover),  probably 
from  some  advice  of  far  less  wise  friends,  was  laid 
on  the  top  shelf  of  the  book-cupboard  with,  "  Better 
not  read  it  until  you  are  a  little  older."  I  gazed  at 
it  longingly  for  some  weeks,  then  climbed  up,  read 
the  first  twenty  pages  or  so  standing  perched  on 
the  back  of  a  chair,  and  relinquished  it  as  being  not 
at  all  "interesting." 

Shakspeare  even — that  great  difficulty  of  parents 
— was  freely  allowed ;  but  no  one  took  advantage 
of  the  permission  except  myself,  and  I  did  not 
care  much  for  him,  except  for  the  purely  imagin- ' 
ative  plays,  such  as  the  Tempest,  Midsummer  Nights 
Dream,  and  Winter's  Tale.  I  suppose  I  must  have 
read  him  all  through,  for  I  can  not  remember  the 
time  when  I  did  not  know  Shakspeare ;  but  I  un- 
derstood and  appreciated  him  very  little  for  a  great 
many  years.  As  for  seeing  any  evil  in  him,  I  would 
as  soon  have  thought  of  seeing  it  in  the  Bible,  which, 


WANT   SOMETHING  TO   READ.  85 

not  to  speak  irreverently  of  the  Holy  Word,  con- 
tains a  good  deal  that  the  fastidious  delicacy  of  the 
present  day  might  consider  "  not  exactly  proper  for 
children." 

Therefore,  if  individual  experience  may  be  allow- 
ed to  say  so,  I  do  think  that  with  children  brought 
up  in  a  virtuous,  decorous  home,  where  "  to  the  pure 
all  things  are  pure,"  the  best  plan  is  to  exclude  en- 
tirely all  glaring  coarseness  and  immoralities,  but 
especially  immoralities,  for  the  tone  of  a  book  has 
far  more  influence  than  its  language ;  and  Don  Juan 
has  done  incalculably  more  harm  than  the  grossest 
phraseology  of  Christian -hearted,  moral,  though 
rude-tongued  Shakspeare.  Afterward-,  let  the  young 
creatures  read  every  thing  and  take  their  chance. 
In  that  evil  world  which  one  sickens  at  their  ever 
knowing  (and  yet  they  must  know  it  and  fight 
through  it,  as  their  Maker  ordains,  or  He  would 
never  have  put  them  into  it),  the  best  safeguard  is, 
not  total  ignorance  of  vice,  but  the  long  habitual 
practice  and  love  of  virtue. 

Into  that  world,  across  the  enchanted  ocean  of 
which  our  pilot  was  the  benevolent  bookseller,  who, 
I  trust,  under  this  anonymous  guise,  and  through 
the  oblivion  of  years,  may  yet  recognize  his  own 
good  deed,  we  children  quickly  passed.  Therein, 
our  readings,  like  our  doings,  concern  nobody  but 
ourselves,  so  that  I  will  no  longer  continue  the 
chronicle. 


86  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

It  will,  however,  have  served  some  purpose  if, 
in  its  literal  facts,  it  carries  any  suggestions  to  ei- 
ther reading  children  or  their  parents  during  what 
may  be  called  the  cacoethes  legendi;  when  toys  de- 
light not,  plays  weary,  playmates  are  quarreled  with, 
and  the  sole  cry  from  morning  till  night  is,  "I  want 
something  to  read." 


WAK-SPARKLES.  87 


tP  ar- Sparkles. 

IT  is  one  of  the  saddest  things  about  war — about 
this  our  present  war,  bursting  upon  us  suddenly  aft- 
er a  long  season  of  peace,  that  we  gradually  become 
used  to  it ;  at  least  we  middle  classes,  whom  it  has 
not  as  yet  touched  so  nearly  as  the  upper  and  low- 
er ranks.  The  first  horror,  the  first  triumph  hav- 
ing worn  off,  we  return  to  daily  life,  which  jogs  on 
just  the  same;  and  "News  from  the  Crimea'7  be- 
comes a  kind  of  indefinite  diurnal  interest,  strong 
indeed,  but  vague  and  unreal.  We  shudder,  glow, 
or  weep  over  it,  but  in  a  heroic,  poetical,  picturesque 
way,  as  it  were  a  tale  that  is  told ;  we  find  it  hard 
to  be  received  as  a  naked  reality.  In  fact,  the  war 
altogether  seems  like  a  great  fire ;  so  far  distant  that 
we  can  hardly  form  an  idea  of  the  conflagration  un- 
less by  some  faint  smoke  on  the  horizon,  or  a  frag- 
ment of  charred  wood  thrown  for  miles,  startling  us 
with  a  visible  sign  of  how  great  is  the  unseen  burn- 
ing. 

This  fancy  and  these  moralizings  came  into  my 
mind  the  other  day  while  pacing  the  Waterloo  term- 
inus. Therefore,  jotting  down  a  few  observations 
made  that  day,  it  appears  not  tin  fitting  to  call  them 
by  the  above  title — War-sparkles. 


88  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

The  great  war-fire  had  been  burning  down  dim- 
ly; Alma,  Balaklava,  Inkermann,  began  to  be  talk- 
ed of  calmly  as  historical  names,  not  stammered  over 
with  a  throbbing  awe.  Good  Heaven !  shall  any  of 
us  now  living  ever  forget  that  September  day  when 
we  first  read  the  limes'  account  of  the  battle  of  the 
Alma?  that  September  moonlight  night,  when  in 
London  streets,  provincial  towns,  and  in  the  deep 
silence  of  country  villages,  people  gathered  togeth- 
er and  asked  one  another  "the  last  news,"  or  spec- 
ulated as  to  what  sort  of  strange,  new,  impossible- 
to-be-realized  scene  the  rnoon  was  illuminating  on 
the  heights  of  Alma  ? 

But  now  all  this  excitement  had  subsided ;  peo- 
ple went  about  the  streets  on  their  own  business,  or 
rushed  to  and  fro  on  railway  lines.  What  a  rush- 
ing there  was  on  this  very  line,  along  which  I  was 
taking  a  short,  luggageless  journey,  entailing  no  bus- 
tle, no  trouble,  and  no  good-by's — most  favorable 
circumstances  for  making  those  studies  from  the  life 
of  which  a  railway  terminus  is  a  first-rate  academy. 
Being  early,  the  platform  is  rather  empty  of  human- 
ities, so  I  amuse  rr^self  with  looking  at  some  lug- 
gage scattered  about,  and  inventing  imaginary  own- 
ers for  it.  One  rather  anomalous  heap  particularly 
attracts  me.  I  have  even  the  curiosity  to  inquire 
what  it  is. 

"  Baggage  for  the  Crimea,"  quoth  the  porter. 

I  start,  remembering  that  this  line  is  the  direct 


WAR-SPARKLES.  89 

highway  to  the  East,  and  that  probably  every  regi- 
ment dispatched  on  foreign  service  must  have  paced 
this  platform  where  I  am  now  pacing  in  such  leis- 
urely laziness,  waiting  for  the  train,  with  no  one  to 
part  from,  no  one  to  leave  behind.  A  certain  dis- 
comfort seizes  me ;  something  like  what  I  feel  in 
reading  with  quiet,  terroiiess  curiosity  the  lists  of 
killed  and  wounded ;  something  like  what  I  felt  this 
winter  in  walking  through  the  streets,  and  seeing 
every  third  person  in  mourning;  bright,  warm  col- 
ors seemed  unnatural  and  unkind. 

"Baggage  for  the  Crimea,"  reiterates  my  friend 
the  porter,  shoving  it  along  without  a  bit  of  senti- 
ment. 

It  is  an  officer's  trunk :  his  name  is  painted 
thereon  in  those  glittering  white  letters  which 
trunk-makers  so  greatly  affect.  And  that  large 
canvass  roll  is  probably  his  bedding.  Poor  fel- 
low !  many  a  heavy  sleep  he  may  have  upon  it ; 
or  it  may  bear  him  in  months  of  weary  languish- 
ing sickness  ;  or  upon  it  he  may  die.  But  that  is 
taking  a  melancholy  view  of  things — never  the 
wisest  view,  under  any  circumstances. 

And  here  come  a  set  of  fellows  who  are  evident- 
ly bent  on  any  thing  but  melancholy.  One  of 
them  jostled  me  in  the  ticket-place  when  I  was 
meditatively  smiling  over  the  penetrative  police- 
man's remark,  "  Second  class,  ma'am,  I  s'pose?" 
Now  they  tumble  out  on  the  platform  by  twos 


90  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

and  threes,  in  a  vain  attempt  at  order,  which  is 
counteracted  by  their  jolly  state  of  mind,  ancl  body 
too,  to  judge  by  the  half- tipsy  chat. 

"  There  they  go,  one  after  the  other,  like  sheep," 
observes  Porter  No.  1  sarcastically  to  Porter  No.  2. 

A  simile  only  too  -appropriate  as  regards  their  ' 
fate,  since  these  are  evidently  recruits  going  down 
to  Southampton  to  be  drilled  into  something  like 
capability,  and  then  shipped  off  to  supply  the  exi- 
gencies of  our  army  in  the  Crimea.  Some  of  them 
have  a  lowering,  desperado  look — the  offscouring 
of  respectability,  which  is  always  drafted  into  "our 
military  defenses,"  and  oftentimes,  to  the  great  sur- 
prise of  Eespectability,  becomes  not  so  bad  a  de- 
fense after  all.  Others  are  mere  lads — more  fit  to 
play  at  soldiers  on  a  village  green  than  to  be  tar- 
gets for  Cossack  bullets.  A  few  decent  young 
men  are  among  them,  but  by  far  the  greater  por- 
tion belong  to  the  awkward  squad.  Truly,  if  out 
of  these  shambling  clodpates  is  to  be  evolved  a  sec- 
tion of  our  British  army — that  glory  of  the  world 
— one  can  not  but  regard  with  mingled  admiration 
and  amazement  the  drill-sergeant. 

But  on  they  stumble,  to  the  sound  of  their  own 
tuneless  and  muzzy  "hurrah,"  and  the  waving  of 
a  heterogeneous  mass  of  indefinite  head-coverings, 
to  each  of  which  is  appended  the  ominous  bunch 
of  ribbons  that  must  have  flaunted  so  cruelly  in 
the  eyes  of  mothers  or  sweethearts  not  many  days 


WAR-SPARKLES.  91 

since ;  for  rarely  is  scapegrace  so  "hopeless,  or  rep- 
robate fallen  so  low,  but  that  there  is  some  woman 
to  love,  or  at  least  to  pity  him.  So  even  these 
half-drunken  young  boors  acquire  a  certain  interest 
in  my  eyes,  thinking  of  the  "  old  folk  at  home." 

Well,  they  are  all  packed — penned  I  may  say — 
in  some  carriage  not  far  distant,  to  judge  by  the 
hammering  of  feet  I  hear,  and  the  mingling  of 
most  sweet  voices  in  that  feebly  uproarious  cheer. 
But  it  dies  out,  and  somebody  starts  a  new  idea — 
namely,  a  song;  the  rest  snatch  it  up,  and  bellow 
it  out  in  the  same  disconnected  fashion,  every  one 
ingeniously  choosing  his  own  time,  tune,  and  words. 
Now  and  then  I  catch  a  note  or  two,  and  find  the 
dreary  noise  is  meant  for  an  English  version  of 
"  Auld  lang  syne." 

"Jolly  enough  they  are,"  observed  occupant 
second  of  our  carriage — a  comfortable  farmer — to 
occupant  third,  just  leaping  in.  " Recruits,  sure 
enough !" 

"Urn!"  hums  occupant  third,  with  a  slightly 
scornful  air,  either  meant  for  the  said  recruits  or 
the  civilian  opposite,  for  he  himself  undoubtedly  is 
of  the  regular  army — a  well-trained,  well-looking 
non-commissioned  officer. 

"Queer  set  of  chaps,  them,"  pursues  the  farmer, 
evidently  desiring,  though  with  a  vague  awe,  to  be 
conversational  and  polite  toward  his  military  neigh- 
bor. 


92  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

"  Um  !"  repeats  the  soldier.  "  Took  a  lot  of  'em 
down  to  Southampton  myself  last  week."  He 
speaks  in  the  tone  with  which  our  agricultural 
friend  might  speak  of  a  drove  of  his  bullocks; 
and  then,  drawing  his  cloak  round  him,  relapses 
into  dignified  silence.  Was  he  ever  a  raw  recruit, 
I  wonder? 

But  now  the  bell  rings,  and  our  train  stirs  a  lit- 
tle ;  in  a  minute  we  shall  be  off.  I  hear  a  sudden 
lull  in  the  song — a  total  silence — and  then  a  weak, 
very  weak  and  uncertain  "  Hurrah !" 

We  are  moving.  It  is  probably — nay,  of  a  cer- 
tainty— the  last  look  that  some  of  this  train  full  of 
travelers  will  ever  take  of  great  old  London,  with 
its  busy  bright  terminus,  its  murky,  multitudinous 
labyrinth  of  streets,  which  we  behold  in  an  ever- 
varying  panorama,  moving  below  us  as  we  fly  on 
past  Vauxhall. 

I  wonder  whether  any  one  of  those  fellows,  who, 
their  cheering  having  ceased,  are  tolerably  quiet 
now,  has  put  his  head  out  of  the  window,  and 
thought  —  as  the  dullest  and  wickedest  young 
scamp  must  think  at  times — of  some  little  pleas- 
ant fragment  of  the  past  ?  Has  any  one  inly  specu- 
lated in  his  rude  way  about  the  chance  of  "  never 
coming  back  no  more?" 

Doubtless  no ;  for  we  all  are  apt  to  see  only  at 
our  neighbor's  shoulder  the  fate  which  stands  in- 
visibly behind  our  own  ;  very  few  minds,  and  un- 


WAR-SPARKLES.  93 

der  very  rare  circumstances,  are  haunted  by  the 
strongly  impressed  dread  which  is,  in  fact,  the  un- 
recognized truth  of  all  life — that  every  minute  is  a 
"  no  more." 

"  Have  an  orange,  miss?  Eeal  nice !  Do,  now." 
No,  my  benevolent  farmer-neighbor;  no,  thank 
you.  You  were  little  aware  on  what  a  thread  of 
fine-drawn  sentiment  and  philosophy  you  were 
breaking,  and  as  little  aware,  my  honest  friend, 
that  your  quiet  fellow-passenger,  whom  you  evi- 
dently took  for  some  respectable  person,  probably 
a  dress-maker,  going  to  see  her  friends  in  the  coun- 
try, would  ever  put  you  down  in  an  article.  You 
are  not  particularly  interesting ;  I  have  traveled 
with  the  like  of  you  by  dozens.  I  know  your 
plump,  well-outlined,  apple-like  profile  perfectly — 
a  thoroughly  honest  English  profile — rosy  and 
good-humored  in  youth,  gradually  descending  to 
the  rubicund  and  jolly  in  old  age.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  your  name  is  John  Smith,  or  Thomas 
Brown,  or  some  other  thoroughly  English  name ; 
that  your  antecedents,  Smith  or  Brown,  have  been 
"grown"  for  generations  at  and  about  the  country 
town  whither  you  kindly  ask  if  I  am  going.  I 
conjecture  you  have  unquestionably  been  for  the 
last  ten  years  the  beau,  par  excellence,  of  all  the 
shop-keeping  beauty  in  the  said  town,  until  you 
shocked  its  feelings  by  bringing  home  from  some 
rival  town,  or  perhaps  from  London  even,  a  Mrs. 


94  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

Smith  or  Mrs.  Brown,  after  which  you  subsided 
into  the  sage  proprieties  of  middle  age.  Yet  you 
are  conscious  that  you  are  a  very  good-looking  fel- 
low still — agreeable  too — and  that  such  a  quiet  per- 
son as  myself  can  not  but  feel  honored  by  j'our  po- 
lite and  benevolent  attentions  in  the  matter  of  the 
orange,  and  the  query  as  to  my  destination.  Cer- 
tainly, my  friend,  you  mean  well,  and  I  am  natu- 
rally open  to  kindness;  but,  I  repeat,  you  are  not 
interesting.  I  have  no  great  wish  for  your  conver- 
sation ;  I  prefer  watching  your  opposite  fellow- 
traveler,  the  soldier  in  the  next  compartment. 

Is  he  conning  over  that  great  sad  mystery— "  no 
more"?  Is  he  bound  for  the  Crimea,  I  wonder? 
Has  he  any  friends  left  behind  in  town,  that  he 
presses  his  mustached  physiognomy  so  closa  to  the 
window,  and  rubs  the  pane  clear  from  mist,  and 
gazes  back  with  a  gaze  very  sad  and  serious  for  a 
handsome  young  red-coat  upon  that  huge,  fog-over- 
hung London,  whose  intersected  lines  of  lights  are 
becoming  fainter,  dwindling  into  lamps  here  and 
there,  with  black  hazy  patches  between,  brick-fields, 
and  commons,  and  hedged-meadows,  as  we  sweep 
on  into  the  regular  country. 

That  curiously  earnest  look  interests  me,  even  in 
a  soldier.  Some  minutes  after,  he  accepts  from  my 
quondam  friend  the  reversion  of  Punch,  and  re- 
moves close  under  the  carriage-lamp  to  investigate 
it— quite  in  his  line,  for  the  sketch  is  that  admira- 


WAR-SPARKLES.  95 

ble  one  of  the  Crimean  navvy  digging  Lord  Bag- 
Ian  out  of  the  mud,  with  the  motto,  "  Spades  are 
trumps !"  I  take  the  favorable  opportunity  of  in- 
vestigating him. 

Certainly  there  is  a  great  deal  of  downright  beau- 
ty sown  broadcast  about  the  world.  That  head 
would  make  a  first-rate  study.  Of  the  aquiline 
type,  brown-skinned,  dark-eyed,  with  a  capacious 
brow,  and  a  well-cut  mouth  and  chin — delicate,  yet 
extremely  characteristic,  close  and  firm.  The  sort 
of  head  which  convinces  you  that,  in  whatever  sta- 
tion its  owner  was  born,  his  present  one  is  a  step  or 
two  above  it,  since  he  himself  is  the  sort  of  man 
that  is  sure  to  rise.  Now  I  understand  the  reason 
of  the  stripes  on  his  sleeve,  and  his  being  intrusted 
to  "  take  a  lot  o7  them  to  Southampton."  I  have  no 
doubt,  young  as  he  looks — certainly  under  thirty — 
that  fellow  could  easily  have  commanded  a  regiment. 

He  smiles  in  a  grave,  patronizing  way  over 
Punch's  jocularities  on  his  profession,  and  returns 
the  paper. 

"  Sharp  doings  out  there,"  remarks  its  owner. 

a  Rather,"  with  a  twist  of  the  mustache,  indicat- 
ing sublime  indifference  either  to  the  subject  or  to 
the  ignorant  interlocutor. 

"Going  to  the  Crimea?" 

"Our  regiment's  ordered  out  in  the  spring." 

So  my  little  fabric  of  sentiment  falls  to  the 
ground ;  that  thoughtful  look  was  not  a  good-by. 


96  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

"Ever  been  on  foreign  service?'7 
"  Eleven  years." 


"  Malta—  Canada—  West  Indies—  Calcutta." 

Our  military  friend  runs  over  the  names  as  care- 
lessly as  an  omnibus-cad  ejaculates,  "Bank  —  Ox'd 
St  —  Totten'  Co't-road."  The  civilian  draws  back, 
and  his  next  question  is  put  with  a  certain  wonder* 
ing  deference. 

"  Been  long  returned  ?" 

"  Nine  weeks." 

And  the  young  maD,  pulling  his  foraging-cap 
over  his  brow,  throws  himself  back  in  his  corner, 
with  a  plainly  apparent  air  of  "  What-do-you-know- 
about-these-sort-of-things?"  But  the  other  meekly 
and  reverentially  persisting  in  his  civilities,  the  sol- 
dier at  last  condescends  to  show  that  even  a  son  of 
Mars  is  not  insensible  to  the  merits  of  oranges,  and 
responds  briefly  to  a  few  remarks  on  the  war  in  the 
Crimea. 

"Will  it  last,  do  you  think?" 

"Maybe;  but  most  likely  the  best  of  it  will  be 
over  by  the  time  we  get  there." 

"How  do  you  feel  about  going  out?"  with  slight 
hesitation,  as  if  the  worthy  questioner  had  an  un- 
comfortable consciousness  of  how  lie  should  feel  un- 
der the  circumstances. 

"Me!  Shouldn't  mind  if  we  were  off  to-mor- 
row." And  with  a  little  snort,  too  entirely  indiffer- 


WAR-SPARKLES.  97 

ent  to  be  even  contemptuous,  he  settles  himself  once 
more,  shutting  his  eyes,  and  turning  away  from  the 
lamplight,  which  sparkles  merrily  on  his  trim  regi- 
mentals, and  makes  quite  starry  the  metal  ornament 
on  his  belt — the  "  bursting  ball."  As  the  head  lies  t 
back,  the  face  as  quiet  as  that  of  a  child  in  the  cra- 
dle, I  can  not  help  watching  it,  and  speculating  on 
the  life  of  its  owner — his  wild  wandering  life  "  from 
Indus  to  the  pole ;"  also  what  his  coming  home  was 
like  after  those  eleven  years — whether  he  had  any 
home  to  come  to — any  mother  to  trace  in  those  set 
bronzed  features  her  lad,  who  must  have  been  a 
mere  stripling  when  he  went  away  ?  He  was  then 
a  recruit,  as  raw,  perhaps,  as  some  of  those  in  the 
carriage  hard  by. 

Looking  at  the  firm,  handsome  head,  and  truly 
gentleman -like  bearing  of  this  young  man,  who 
must  have  begun  life  in  the  ranks,  I  fell  into  a  rev- 
erie concerning  the  influence  of  character  on  circum- 
stances— circumstances  on  character — and  where 
was  the  just  division  of  results  attributable  to  both, 
"A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that!" — undeniable  fact. 
But,  then,  "  Every  man  is  as  God  made  him."  How 
far  can  he  himself,  of  his  own  free  will,  remodel  or 
degrade  the  original  article  ?  That  problem,  I  sus- 
pect, never  will  be  decided  on  this  side  of  the' 
grave  :  the  great  solution — as  we  hope — of  all  life's 
mysteries. 

At  present  it  is  sufficient  to  read,  as  I  gladly  do 
E 


98  STUDIES  FKOM   LIFE. 

in  the  countenance  of  this  man,  only  a  step  above 
the  grade  of  a  common  soldier,  confirmation  of 
my  favorite  truth,  that,  granted  certain  conditions, 
which  are  denied  to  few,  a  man's  career  lies  appar- 
ently in  his  own  hands,  and  he  is — exactly  what  he 
chooses  to  make  himself. 

A  pause  at  a  station,  and  our  sergeant — I  believe 
that  is  his  rank,  though  I  can  not  vouch  for  it,  be- 
ing quite  unlearned  in  military  lore — opens  his 
eyes.  He  has  not  been  asleep,  for  I  have  noticed 
him  do  the  same  several  times,  and  look  with  a 
lazy  yet  earnest  stare  up  to  the  carriage-roof. 
Query,  where  were  his  thoughts  roaming?  to  Mal- 
ta, or  Canada,  or  Calcutta,  or  the  West  Indies? 
Sweeping  over  his  eleven  years  abroad,  or  con- 
verging into  that  small  point — the  nine  weeks  he 
has  been  at  home?  Anyhow,  he  must  have  enough 
materials  for  meditation,  Heaven  knows!  and  I 
trust,  judging  by  his  air  of  goodness,  steadfastness, 
and  even  woman-like  sweetness  when  he  smiles, 
that  he  need  not  be  in  any  great  dread  of  Heav- 
en's knowing  them  all — or  man  either.  Let  us 
hope  that,  serious,  even  sad,  as  he  was  looking  just 
now,  within  these  nine  weeks  there  has  been  an 
old  mother's  hand  laid  on  those  brown  curls,  in- 
flicting on  his  heart  no  conscience-sting,  no  fear 
lest  she  should  find  out  how  much  wickeder  was 
the  man  who  came  home  than  her  lad  who  went 
away. 


WAR-SPARKLES.  ,„  99 

"  Aw — what  carriage  is  this?  IVe  lost  my  car- 
riage— aw — " 

And  pushed  in  by  the  guard,  for  the  train  is 
moving,  enters  a  stray  from  elsewhere,  a  very  new- 
ly-fledged youngling — of  the  upper  classes  decided- 
ly, as  he  takes  care  immediately  to  inform  us. 

uAw — is  this  a  second-class  carriage?  I  never 
was  in  a  second-class  carriage  before.  Aw" — scan- 
ning with  his  eye-glass  the  two  compartments,  and 
turning  up  his  nose  at  the  bare  seats,  which  might 
be  newly  painted  certainly  without  ruining  the 
company — "  aw — deuced  uncomfortable !" 

He  speaks  with  that  drawl  which,  I  have  heard, 
is  considered  good  English  in  the  "first  circles,"  at 
least  in  a  segment  of  them,  and  manifests  great  in- 
difference to  the  letter  r.  He  is  small,  has  a  young 
face,  weak  in  outline,  is  of  light  complexion,  with 
light  hair.  He  might  pass  for  an  Eton  lad  home 
for  the  holidays,  only  he  wears  a  magnificent  ring, 
and  keeps  perpetually  stroking  his  upper  lip,  as  if 
to  assure  himself  that  no  accident  has  happened  to 
the  indefinite  hirsute  appendage  there.  Finally, 
discovering  that  he  is  locked  in,  and  must  perforce 
make  acquaintance  with  a  second-class  carriage,  he 
tries  to  settle  himself,  noisily  enough — throwing  his 
cloak  about,  and  talking  very  loud  to  us  all  in  gen- 
eral. We  are  silent ;  but  the  soldier,  under  cover 
of  his  handsome  mustache,  indulges  in  an  amused 
smile ;  and  a  little  news-boy,  who  has  crept  into  the 


100  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

carriage  with  his  bundle,  eyes  with  considerable  re- 
spect the  pompous  boy-man  opposite. 

"Aw — got  a  Times,  my  lad?  No!  Must  have 
a  Times — very  important  that  I  should  have  the 
latest  intelligence.  Could  I  get  a  Times  at ?" 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  What  have  you  here?  Aw — deuced  provok- 
ing," snatching,  glancing  over,  and  crumpling  more 
than  one  paper,  which,  however,  he  returns  without 
paying  for.  "I  always  prefer  the  Times.  Any 
news  from  the  East  to-night  ?"  generally  addressed 
to  every  body. 

"  Can't  say — rather  fancy  not,"  gruffly  answers 
the  sergeant,  who  sits  directly  opposite  to  him,  and 
toward  whom  his  eye  travels. 

"  Oh,  I  see — what's  your  regiment  ?" 

A  glance,  indicating  strongly  "What  business  is 
that  of  yours  ?"  then  a  monosyllabic  reply. 

"  The  — th ;  not  a  bad  regiment,  neither.  Going 
on  foreign  service  ?" 

"  No,"  gruffer  than  ever. 

"  Of  course  not;  I  forgot.  It's  the  — th  and  the 
— th  that  are  ordered  to  the  Crimea.  I'm  off  my- 
self there  to-morrow  night." 

This  annihilating  information  was  given  with 
hands  in  pocket  and  chin  in  air,  in  an  assumption 
of  indifference. 

The  soldier  answered  with  a  military  salute  and 
due  military  respect,  "Indeed,  sir." 


WAR-SPARKLES.  101 

"Yes,"  said  the  boy -officer,  condescendingly 
leaning  over  to  converse  with  the  non-commission- 
ed. "I  received  my  orders  yesterday.  I'm  going 
home  for  to-night,  and  to-morrow  I  sail.  Quick 

work,  as  Lord  C said  to  me  at  the  Horse 

Guards  this  morning.  But  the  army  must  be  sup- 
plied ;  the  case  is  urgent,  you  know ;  we  are  very 
much  wanted  out  there.'7 

"  Ay,  sir,"  with  a  most  creditable  gravity. 

"  By-the-by,"  evidently  desirous  of  a  talk,  to  show 
how  thoroughly  "up"  he  was  in  professional  mat- 
ters, "how  many  do  you  think  they  are  recruiting 
per  day  at  the  Horse  Guards  ?  One  thousand ! 

Incredible!  As  I  said  to  Lord  C when  we 

were  driving  to-day  to  the  army  agent's,  the  thing 
is  impossible,  and  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  Nor  I,  sir,"  with  a  quiet  smile ;  "  and  I'm  a  re- 
cruiting-officer myself,  stationed  at "  (a  town 

not  far  off). 

"  Curious.  Yet  I've  never  seen  you  about  my 
father's  place ;  but  you  may  have  seen  me — doubt- 
less you  have  seen  me — for  I've  often  gone  about 
in  recruiting-parties,  with  my  gun  on  my  shoulder, 
and  my  dogs,  pretending  to  be  out  shooting — ha ! 
ha !  I  like  recruiting  very  much  myself;  it's  cap- 
ital fun.  These  poachers  and  the  like,  how  many 
of  them  do  you  beat  up  in  a  week  ?  But  a  thou- 
sand a  day !  Aw — I  assured  Lord  C ,  from  my 

own  experience,  that  the  thing  was  impossible." 


102  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 

"  I  think  so  too,  sir." 

A  lull,  in  which  the  lad — what  a  mere  lad  he 
was! — held  out  a  snuff-box  graciously:  "Take  a 
pinch ;"  and  began  once  more  in  loquacious  excite- 
ment. 

"Your  regiment  got  the  new  clothing  }7et? 
Mine  has  not ;  we  sha'n't  get  it  till  spring ;  very 
inconvenient.  Now"  —  again  leaning  elbow  on 
knee,  in  ardent  and  earnest  consultation — "what 
do  you  think  about  cross-belts  and  waist-belts  ?  As 
I  said  at  the  Horse  Guards,  I  myself  am  all  in  fa- 
vor of  the  cross-belt.  It  looks  far  the  best." 

"  It  does,  sir;  but  then,  you  see,  it  has  great  dis- 
advantages;" and  the  other  began  to  explain  a  few 
facts  on  the  part  of  the  common  soldier  and  his 
accoutrements  which  I  was  not  learned  enough 
thoroughly  to  comprehend ;  but  I  could  not  help 
admiring  the  intelligent,  respectful  way  in  which 
he  brought  his  practical  information  to  bear  on  the 
voluble  ignorance  of  his  superior — the  sound,  sen- 
sible argument  of  "So  I've  heard,  sir,  from  them 
that  wears  it;"  the  quiet  patience  of  "You  see,  sir, 
it's  us  soldiers  who  know:  these  sort  of  things  don't 
reach  to  head-quarters." 

But  "these  sort  of  things"  were  almost  wholly 
the  letter  of  military  etiquette ;  the  cross-belt  ques- 
tion seemed  of  far  more  importance  to  the  juvenile 
warrior  than  any  other,  with  one  momentous  ex- 
ception. 


WAR-SPARKLES.  103 

"  There  is  a  point,  however,  in  which  I  quite 
agree  with  those  at  head-quarters,  and  am  very  glad 
it  has  been  settled  before  I  received  my  orders — 
the  question  of  beards.  They  ought  to  be  allowed 
• — don't  you  think  so?  Shaving  is  such  a  mon- 
strous inconvenience," 

"  Yes,  sir,"  in  a  rather  smothered,  but  still  duly 
respectful  voice,  as  the  recruiting  officer  put  his 
hand  over  his  own  handsome  mouth,  so  well  gar- 
nished, and  abstained  from  even  a  look  which  might 
hint  how  very  little  inconvenience  any  anti-barbal 
regulations  would  apparently  have  caused  to  the 
youth  opposite.  Not  so  the  civilian  beside  me,  who, 
at  first  impressed  into  attention  by  John  Bull's  in- 
stinctive respect  for  the  first-class  passengers  of  life, 
had  afterward,  with  John  Bull's  equally  instinctive 
penetration  of  shams,  listened,  broadly  grinning, 
and  at  this  last  speech  broke  out  in  a  regular  ex- 
plosion. 

Luckily,  it  was  harmless.  We  had  reached  a 
station,  and  our  youthful  friend,  once  more  eagerly 
impressing  upon  us  that  he  had  never  been  in  a 
second-class  carriage  before,  made  a  precipitate  exit 
from  ours. 

"He — he — ho!  I  wonder  how  much  a  year  it 
costs  him  in  shaving-soap!  Pretty  fellow  he  is  to 
fight  the  Russians !  Is  that  the  stuff  your  officers 
are  made  of,  my  friend  ?" 

The  recruiting  sergeant,  who  had  been  indulging 


104  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

in  a  few  quiet  smiles,  now  resumed  an  air  of  regi- 
mental dignity. 

"Many  a  good  officer  has  been  made  out  of 
worse.  He'll  improve ;  lie  is  but  a  lad;" 

"  He  seems  merry  enough  at  the  prospect  of  go- 
ing to  get  shot  in  the  Crimea,"  I  could  not  help  ob- 
serving. "It  will  be  a  rather  different  thing  for 
his  mother,  if  he  has  one,  when  he  gets  home  to- 
night." 

My  friend  the  farmer  looked  rather  surprised  that 
his  friend  the  supposed  dress-maker  should  make 
any  remark  at  all ;  but  he  ceased  his  loud  laughter ; 
possibly  he  himself  had  a  little  lad  at  home  whom 
he  would  rather  have  beating  a  baby-drum,  or  see 
strut  about  petticoated,  shouldering  a  sham  musket, 
than  be  sending  off  to-night  to  the  Crimea.  He 
listened  very  patiently  while  I  gave  him,  woman- 
like, a  piece  of  my  mind — the  other  side  of  the  sub- 
ject, which  touches  nearest  the  women  and  mothers 
at  home.  For,  empty  as  the  lad  was,  now  he  was 
gone,  and  his  prattle  had  ceased,  my  mind  involun- 
tarily drew  a  vivid  picture  of  the  home  waiting  him 
to-night  for  the  last  night.  His  father's  place,  soon 
to  be  swept  away  from  him,  with  all  its  luxuries — 
its  dogs  and  horses,  preserves  and  game-keepers — 
its  hunting,  fishing,  and  driving — perhaps,  too,  the 
slight  adjunct  of  "  the  old  governor,"  who  had  paid 
scores  of  needless  bills  "like  a  trump;"  and  of 
"mamma,  who  is  always  fidgeting  after  a  fellow 


WAR-SPARKLES.  105 

so  !"  All  gone — this  gay  country-squire  life,  full  of 
tangible  sensuous  enjoyments — the  only  life  the  lad 
had  probably  ever  known  or  wished  to  know — and 
in  its  stead,  hardship,  weariness,  disease,  and  pain ; 
death  threatening  on  all  sides — in  the  fight,  in  the 
camp,  in  the  trenches,  in  the  dreary  desolation  of 
the  hospital ;  every  possible  form  of  human  misery 
by  which  man's  physical  and  moral  strength  is 
tried.  And  what  strength  can  this  poor  lad  bring 
to  meet  them  ?  Nothing. 

"  Ma'am,"  said  my  fellow-passenger  seriously,  ap- 
parently rather  shaken  in  his  dress-maker  theory, 
and  a  good  deal  surprised  that  a  woman  unsuscepti- 
ble to  polite  attentions  should  enter  into  any  deeper 
subject,  or,  indeed,  converse  at  all — "ma'am,  these 
things  are  very  true  and  very  unfortunate ;  but  how 
can  we  mend  'em  ?  Should  you  like  to  go  out  after 
the  fashion  of  Miss  Nightingale?" 

"I  think  Miss  Nightingale  is  likely  to  do  more 
for  our  poor  soldiers  than  all  the  Privy  Council  put 
together." 

"  But  'tisn't  a  woman's  business." 

"  Any  thing  is  a  woman's  business  which  she 
feels  herself  impelled  to  do,  and  which,  without 
losing  her  self-respect,  she  feels  capable  of  doing." 

"  Do  you  feel  yourself  capable  of  doing  like  Miss 
Nightingale?  Would  you  like  to  be  a  nurse  at 
Scutari?" 

A  second  time  I  eluded  this  argumentum  act  fern- 
E  2 


106  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 

mam.  "  There  are  probably  very  few  women  who 
would  choose  such  a  life,  still  fewer  who  are  capa- 
ble of  fulfilling  it ;  but  when  the  two  are  combined, 
I  see  no  reason  on  earth  why  any  woman,  high  or 
low,  should  not  undertake  the  duty,  and  be  rever- 
enced for  doing  it." 

"  Certainly,  ma'am,  certainly, "pulling  up  his  coat 
collar,  and  composing  himself  to  a  snooze.  I  had 
wasted  my  warmth  on  too  thick-skinned  an  animal. 
John  Bull  feels  chiefly  through  his  daily  newspa- 
pers. My  agrarian  friend,  within  a  dozen  miles  of 
a  snug  tea  and  Mrs.  John  Bull,  had  not  a  keen  sens- 
ibility for  either  suffering  or  heroism. 

For  the  recruiting  officer,  who,  in  the  next  com- 
partment, had  probably  caught  our  conversation 
very  fragmentarily,  he  only  now  and  then  looked 
round  on  us  civilians  out  of  the  corners  of  his  eyes 
in  a  kind  of  mildly  superior  air.  u  My  good  people, 
you  are  talking  of  things  you  know  nothing  at  all 
about." 

We  do  not !  Heaven  help  us !  That  is  and  has 
been  the  great  misery  of  this  war,  that  we  at  home 
— at  least  two  thirds  of  us,  do  know  nothing  at  all 
about  it.  We  can  not  take  it  in ;  and  because  we 
can  not,  we  are  almost  powerless  against  its  miser- 
ies. What  can  I  know — I,  a  comfortable  English- 
woman, traveling  thus  in  peace  and  pleasure?  or 
you,  jolly  Englishman,  going  cosily  home  to  smoke 
your  pipe  over  the  fire,  and  tell  your  wife  of  this 


WAR-SPARKLES.  107 

little  railway  incident,  adding,  perhaps,  as  you  add- 
ed but  now  (with  a  glance  at  my  black  gown,  as  if 
there  to  read  the  secret  of  my  interest  in  Scutari), 
"  Eather  bad  for  folk  who  have  relations  out  there." 
My  honest  friend,  what  can  either  you  or  I  know 
of  even  those  things  that  have  reached  us  within 
the  last  two  hours  ?  Can  we  follow  those  wretched 
boy-recruits,  who  will  have  weeks  on  weeks  of  in- 
cessant toil  and  torment  ere  made  into  decent  sol- 
diers, and  then  will  be  shipped  off  like  cattle,  to  be 
hunted  down  by  Cossack  lancers,  or  die  in  herds  by 
the  road-side,  and  in  the  trenches,  and  among  the 
Crimean  snows  ?  Can  we  picture  the  future  of  that 
young  lad  we  laughed  at,  or  guess  how  his  mother 
or  sister,  or  some  fond  fool  that  cares  for  him,  sim- 
pleton as  he  is,  will  sit  at  home  these  many  months 
to  come,  and  picture  it  too  ?  Can  we  tell  what  may 
be  the  end  of  that  fine  handsome  fellow  who  lounges 
opposite  under  the  lamplight,  who  is  ordered  out 
next  spring,  and  who,  with  quiet  brave  indifference, 
"wouldn't  mind  if  it  was  to-morrow,"  is  evidently 
ready  at  all  risks,  and  under  all  circumstances,  to 
do  his  duty,  and  to  call  the  highest  heroism  simple 
"duty,"  nothing  more?  Now,  can  you  and  I,  my 
cheery  stay-at-home  friend,  imagine  him  lying  in 
the  cold,  with  his  stalwart  limbs  shot  off,  and  his 
bold  brown  face  stark  and  white ;  or  huddled  under 
a  flapping  tent,  with  the  snow  beating  in  on  his 
helplessness ;  or  languishing  weeks  and  months  on 


108  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

a  hospital  bed,  and  rising  only — if  he  ever  does  rise 
— an  invalid  for  life  ? 

No,  my  good  friend,  we  can  not  realize  these 
things ;  we  can  only,  when  needed,  put  our  hand 
into  our  purse,  as  I  dare  say  you  would  to  the  ut- 
most of  your  honest  capability,  and  try  to  abate 
any  suffering  we  know  of;  above  all,  to  help  on, 
each  by  his  small  power — making  in  the  aggre- 
gate the  power  which  rules  the  universe,  Love — 
that  time  when  the  "  nations  shall  not  make  war 
any  more." 

So  good-by,  my  jolly  agriculturist;  may  you 
give  your  plowmen  wages  enough  to  keep  body 
and  soul  together,  so  that  they  need  not  take  to 
poaching  first,  and  to  the  ale-house  and  "listing" 
afterward.  And  good-by,  my  steady  recruiting  of- 
ficer ;  would  that,  for  your  sake,  our  army  wrere  so 
nobly  democratic  that  every  private  had  it  in  his 
own  power  to  become  a  general :  your  good,  hand- 
some face  will  often  stop  me  in  future  philippics 
against  soldiers. 

Good-by,  for  I  descend  at  this  little  country  sta- 
tion, and  am  ready  to  vanish  into  the  dark;  and, 
ere  the  train  glides  off,  like  a  long,  sinuous  black 
serpent,  with  three  eyes  in  its  tail,  I  hear  the  little 
news-boy  running  from  carriage  to  carriage,  with 
his  fan  of  papers  extended,  shouting  out  in  his 
small  voice, 

"To-day's  Herald — second  'dition  !  Last  news 
o'  the  war!" 


WAR-SPARKLES.  109 

The  war — the  war!  And  I  am  driving  down 
peaceful  country  lanes,  between  feathery,  white  fo 
liaged  trees,  and  deep,  silent  snow-drifts,  shone  on 
by  moonlight  and  stars ! 


110  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


©Ur  SoRuer'0  (Coming  fijome. 

THEY  are  very  quiet  people,  my  Somersetshire 
cousins.  Sight-seeing  is  altogether  out  of  their 
element.  Some  of  them  never  beheld  London  in 
all  their  lives,  and  have  as  much  conception  of  it 
as  they  have  of  the  Tower  of  Babel.  Of  a  London 
crowd  they  have  no  more  notion  than  a  Hindoo- 
stance  has  of  the  icebergs  in  the  Northwest  Passage. 
When  I  talked  to  them  of  the  strangely  solemn 
pageant — perhaps  the  strangest  and  solemnest  that 
London  streets  will  witness  for  many  a  century — 
the  Wellington  funeral,  they  listened  with  uncom- 
prehending wonder,  and  thought  "it  must  have 
been  odd  to  see  so  many  people  together."  Of 
that  multitudinous  surging  human  sea — the  grand- 
est part  of  any  metropolitan  sight — they  heard 
with  the  shrinking  which  most  English  country 
gentlewomen  feel  at  the  idea  of  "  the  mob." 

Therefore  it  was  not  surprising  that  when  we 
heard  of  the  "show"  at  Bristol,  its  funereal  splen- 
dors were  not  attractive.  We  determined  to  be 
among  the  few  who  did  not  rush  to  see  the  Caradoc 
come  into  harbor,  and  the  landing  of  that  poor 
worn,  aged  body,  which,  perhaps,  had  better  have 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        Ill 

been  left  where  the  septuagenarian  soldier's  heart 
broke  under  his  too  heavy  burden;  where  busy 
Slander,  pointing  out  the  countless  graves  around 
him,  would  have  been  silent  as  soon  as  her  foot 
reached  the  old  man's  own.  No ;  we  had — or  all 
avouched  we  had — not  the  slightest  wish  to  see 
Lord  Raglan's  sorrowful  "coming  home." 

It  was — as  we  in  our  isolated  ignorance  sup- 
posed— the  morning  after  the  funeral  when  we 
walked  to  the  station,  with  the  intention  of  "do- 
ing" Bristol  and  Clifton  in  a  quiet  comfortable 
way,  becoming  such  very  quiet  middle-aged  gentle- 
women, to  whom  the  shortest  railway  journey  was 
an  event  of  importance. 

"Let  me  take  the  tickets,  pray."  For  I  had  a 
notion  that  my  little  cousin,  Miss  Patience,  would 
be  completely  annihilated  by  the  crowd  I  saw 
gathering,  or  else  that  she  would  commit  some 
egregrious  blunder  in  the  matter  of  tickets,  and 
allow  us  the  pleasure  of  traveling  to  Bristol  for  a 
London  fare.  So  I  rushed  valorously  into  the 
throng  that  seemed  thickening  momently  behind 
me.  Surely,  surely — yes !  too  late  we  saw  the  fa- 
tal announcement,  exhibited  in  black-edged  formal- 
ity on  the  office  wall,  that  this  day  trains  would 
start  to  see  the  funeral  of  Lord  Raglan. 

We  had  made  a  great  mistake ;  but  the  tickets 
were  taken,  and  it  required  all  one's  powers,  men- 
tal and  physical,  to  edge  a  safe  way  out  of  that  hot, 


112  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

smothery,  scrambling,  shouting,  fighting  throng,  to 
which  one — only  one ! — helpless  and  miserable  of- 
ficial was  dispensing  advice,  entreaties,  and  tickets 
— the  last  in  very  small  proportion  to  the  two  for- 
mer. I  owed  mine  solely  to  the  burly  protecting 
shoulder  and  bluff  benevolent  voice  of  a  big  Som- 
ersetshire lad;  thence  being  piteously  jostled  and 
crushed  till  I  sheltered  behind  a  sickly,  grim,  elder- 
ly Indian  officer. 

"Can't  you  find  your  party — aw!  Better  ask 
the  policeman;  one  always  requires  a  policeman 
among  the  lower  classes." 

"Yes,"  added  a  lively  young  matron.  "I'm 
sure  I  had  no  idea  of  the  crowd  till  the  policeman 
told  me  to  take  care  of  my  little  boy.  I  declare  I 
had  quite  forgotten  the  child." 

An  odd  mother,  I  thought ;  but  then  she  was  so 
fashionable ! 

Here  the  crowd  grew  more  nebulous,  and  at 
length  I  slowly  emerged  therefrom,  to  be  met  on 
the  platform  almost  as  eagerly  and  pathetically  as 
Dante  would  have  met  a  friendly  ghost  escaped 
out  of  purgatory. 

"  Of  course,  Cousin  Patience,  you'll  not  think  of 
going  to-day?"  said  I. 

But  Miss  Patience  hesitated;  and  there  was  a 
curious  twinkle  in  her  brown  eyes — such  brilliant 
eyes!  if  only  she  would  not  hide  them  under  that 
dreadful  blue  veil  and  green  bonnet.  There  cer- 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        113 

tainly  is  in  the  human  mind  an  inherent  efferves- 
cence, which,  however  corked  and  sealed,  when 
brought  into  contact  with  the  wholesome  natural 
air  has  an  irresistible  tendency  to  froth  over.  And 
why  not,  Miss  Patience?  Who  made  your  bright 
eyes,  your  merry  laugh,  and  your  gay  heart,  that 
instinctively  responds  to  all  innocent  pleasures? 
Bender  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due.  Don't 
look  so  shamefaced  and  doubtful,  as  if  you  were 
afraid  you  were  sinning  much  in  gently  hinting, 

"  We  do  not  very  often  have  a  holiday." 

Upon  which,  though  I  firmly  believed,  from  the 
signs  of  the  gathering  multitude,  that  these  two  ami- 
able and  simple  gentlewomen  would  come  home, 
as  the  children  say,  "all  in  little  pieces,"  of  course 
I  hesitated  no  longer.  If  we  could  but  get  safe 
into  some  carriage!  and  for  the  Bristol  show  we 
must  only  trust  to  fortune. 

Fortune  favors  the  helpless  as  well  as  the  brave. 
After  a  few  well-escaped  chances — such  as  my 
Cousin  Patience's  being  thrust  next  to  a  sweep  and 
his  bag,  and  my  Cousin  Faith's  being  invited  to  the 
knee  of  an  ancient  farmer — we  got  secure,  and,  as 
we  rejoiced  to  know,  "  thoroughly  respectable" 
seats  near  a  grieved  old  lady,  who,  in  the  scramble, 
had  paid  double  fare,  and  offered  her  return-ticket 
generously  to  the  company  round. 

"  Gi'e  un  to  I,"  issued  from  the  mouth  of  a  large, 
handsome,  well-dressed  young  fellow,  who  seemed 


ill  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

to  have  cultivated  with  the  utmost  success  his  farm, 
his  flesh,  his  muscle,  and  his  whiskers — every  thing, 
in  short,  except  his  education.  But  when  his  sweet- 
heart, blushing  under  a  most  wonderful  pink  bon- 
net, mildly  ejaculated,  "La,  Joe!"  and  explained, 
in  a  smothered  Devon  accent,  that  the  difference  of 
fare  might  be  applied  for,  and  be  returned  at  Bris- 
tol, Mr.  Joe,  with  a  wide-mouthed  merry  "Haw- 
haw!"  relapsed  into  a  conversation  with  a  mascu- 
line neighbor  on,  I  believe,  turnips. 

We  started. 

"  Thirty -five  minutes  behind  time,"  said  a  quiet 
young  man  in  the  gray  plaid  costume  of  a  gentle- 
man pedestrian  or  walking  tourist.  "I  hope  no 
accident  will  happen  to  us." 

Faith  and  Patience  gave  a  little  shudder,  but 
still  sat,  worthy  their  names.  On  we  sped  till  we 
lost  sight  of  that  fair  white  city,  which,  like  a  lazy 
beauty,  not  quite  so  young  as  she  has  been,  drowses 
in  sunny  aristocratic  calm  in  her  nest  at  the  valley 
foot,  or  climbs  languidly,  house  by  house,  up  the 
circle  of  the  neighboring  hills.  Very  green  those 
hills  were — green  as  the  slopes  of  Paradise;  and 
now  and  then,  through  the  meadows  below,  appear- 
ed glimpses  of  the  any  thing  but  "  silver"  Avon, 
crawling  on  to  its  acme  of  muddiness  in  ancient 
Bristol. 

"What  a  scene  of  confusion  Bristol  will  be  to- 
day! I  hope  we  shall  come  to  no  harm  in  the 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        115 

crowd ;"  and  very  painful  suggestions  of  our  posi- 
tion as  "  unprotected  females7'  were  forced  upon  our 
minds,  as,  through  carriage  partitions,  we  listened 
to  the  loud  talk  of  the  holiday-people,  to  whom  the 
poor  old  man's  death  had  at  least  given  one  day  of 
harmless  festival. 

"Sir,"  asked  Miss  Faith,  demurely,  after  a  glance 
exchanged  with  Patience  and  me,  and  a  second, 
very  penetrating,  at  the  young  gentleman  her  neigh- 
bor, "  can  you  tell  us  how  best  to  escape  the  proces- 
sion to-day  ?" 

"  Escape  the  procession?"  with  a  doubt  if  he  had 
heard  aright,  and  then  a  srnile  of  considerable  en- 
tertainment. "Yes,  ma'am,  I  think  you  might  es- 
cape all — all  the  amusements  going,  by  taking  back 
streets,  such  as — "  He  mentioned  several. 

"Thank  you.  I  believe  the  procession  was  to 
start  from  Princes  Street." 

"Was  it?  Oh,  thank  you,  madam.  That  will 
just  suit  me;"  and,  apparently  mirthfully  conscious 
that  some  people  were  not  quite  so  foolish  as  some 
other  people,  he  leaned  back,  and  pulled  his  brown 
hat  over  his  laughing  eyes.  Patience's  own  again 
danced  unlawfully. 

"  Don't  you  think,  sister — not  that  I  particularly 
wish  it — but  if,  without  crowding  or  inconvenience, 
we  could  see  just  a  very  little?  'Tis  quite  a  national 
sight — one  we  might  like  to  remember  afterward." 

"Perhaps!"  said   Faith,  hesitatingly.      "At  all 


116  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

events,  we  needn't  exactly  go  out  of  our  way  to 
avoid  the  show.     As  for  the  crowd,  for  my  part — " 

Evidently  the  case  was  settled.  I,  who  knew 
what  a  crowd  was,  only  hoped  I  might  have  the 
consolation  of  bringing  my  innocent  cousins  home 
alive. 

'The  train  threw  us  out  amid  its  hundreds,  and  I 
found  myself  trotting  after  my  companions  down 
the  queer  streets  of  Bristol. 

I  take  a  great  delight  in  the  first  plunge  into  any 
strange  place,  especially  any  strange  town.  It  is  a 
sensation  peculiar  of  its  kind,  exquisitely  vivid  and 
agreeable — one  which,  in  its  individual  charm,  in- 
voluntarily seems  a  foretaste  of  that  state  of  being 
which  we  believe  we  shall  attain  to  when  to  the 
astonished  spirit  "all  things"  will  "become  new." 
The  first  sight  of  a  strange  region  always  remains 
to  my  mental  eye  a  real  picture,  perfect  in  itself, 
distinct  from  any  succession  of  after-pictures  which 
familiarity  may  create  out  of  it.  It  would  be  a  cu- 
rious psychological  process  accurately  to  trace  and 
note  the  gradual  changes  which  a  series  of  impres- 
sions invariably  produce  in  a  place  or  person,  until  ( 
the  first  impression  is  altogether  obliterated,  or  re- 
mains, as  I  say,  like  a  picture  only. 

Therefore  I  shall  always  see  Bristol  as  I  saw  it 
on  that  gray  July  day,  when  every  shop  was  shut 
up  in  Sunday  quietness,  and  the  occasional  toll 
of  a  muffled  bell  gave  a  Sunday-like  atmosphere. 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.         117 

Only  it  was  no  church-going  groups  that  rolled 
along  in  such  jaunty  mirth,  intersecting  the  foot- 
path in  long  lines,  generally  linked  all  together 
arm-in-arm — sometimes  a  country  youth,  with  a 
Blouselinda,  in  her  very  best  shawl  and  bonnet,  on 
either  side;  sometimes  a  laborer,  his  wife,  and  a 
string  of  small  children.  A  great  number  seemed 
to  have  come  in  carts.  I  saw  one  evidently  bivou- 
acked for  the  day,  the  mother  sitting  on  the  front 
seat,  knife  in  hand,  and  on  her  lap  a  gigantic  loaf, 
from  which  she  was  cutting  such  "lommocks"  of 
bread  that  one  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  very  jolly 
appearance  of  these  specimens  of  West  of  England 
rurality.  As  for  their  speech — and  it  was  tolerably 
loud  and  plentiful — I  found  it  quite  unintelligible. 
I  would  as  soon  attempt  to  understand,  or  be  under- 
stood, in  a  parley  with  the  ghosts  of  our  Saxon  an- 
cestors, as  with  their  agricultural  descendants  of 
Wilts,  Devon,  and  Somerset. 

Some  peculiarities  were  noticeable  in  these  pro- 
vincial sight-seers  as  distinguished  from  a  London 
crowd.  There  was  a  far  slenderer  sprinkling  of 
what  we  are  used  to  call  the  "  middle  classes ;"  noth- 
ing was  abroad  on  foot  but  honest  downright  labor, 
bent  on  gratifying  its  curiosity  in  a  solemn,  resolute 
English  way.  Yery  few  jokes  were  scattered  about ; 
your  Hodge  and  Dolly  are  rarely  quick-witted,  at 
least  not  till  the  ale  goes  round ;  but  every  where 
was  a  grave  circumfluence  of  buzzing  expectation, 


118  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

which  gave  the  effect  of  absolute  silence.  No  scram- 
bling or  fighting  for  the  best  points  of  view,  even 
if  Hodge  were  sharp  enough  to  discover  them :  he 
seemed  too  much  unused  to  his  position  to  grow 
obstreperous,  and  contented  himself  with  wander- 
ing along  by  Dolly's  side,  or  planting  himself  at  in- 
tervals to  stare  about  him,  with  an  open-mouthed 
quiet  stupidity  which  served  him  and  his  neigh- 
bors in  the  stead  of  a  dozen  policemen. 

As  for  that  invariable  and  most  obnoxious  ele- 
ment in  a  London  mob — lazy,  lounging,  pseudo- 
gentilit}r,  sinking  through  various  phases  down  to 
tattered,  sharp-witted,  shameless  vice — it  was  here 
wholly  absent;  so  likewise  was  the  gamin  race, 
with  all  its  riot,  mischief,  and  drollery.  I  never 
heard  a  single  attempt  at  that  small,  impertinent, 
yet  often  exceedingly  pertinent  humor,  which  is  the 
delight  of  a  Cockney  crowd,  and  the  very  stock  in 
trade  of  a  Cockney  boy ;  and  for  pickpockets  and 
the  like,  why,  we  might  have  safely  walked,  purse 
in  hand,  along  the  whole  thronged  line  of  road 
which  faced  the  quay.  Nevertheless,  with  all  its 
lack  of  sharpness,  such  intent,  determined  sight-see- 
ing I  never  beheld  as  in  this  honest  West  of  En- 
gland mob. 

We  had  passed  St.  Mary  Eedclyffe — that  grand 
old  church — staying  scarcely  a  minute  to  admire 
what  is  perhaps  the  finest  exterior  ornamentation 
of  any  parish  church  in  England.  And  all  along 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        119 

our  route  we  were  followed  by  the  muffled  clang 
of  its  deep  musical  bell,  that  sounded,  among  the 
weak  tellings  of  the  other  churches,  like  some  rich 
ear-satisfying  contralto  among  a  dozen  feeble,  soul- 
less sopranos.  Shortly  entering  a  higher  road, 
where  a  crowd,  a  good  number  deep,  lined  the  rail- 
ings on  the  farther  side,  we  came  out  upon  a  broad 
arch  of  sky,  with  a  landscape — half  country,  half 
town — in  the  distance,  and  close  underneath  what 
must  be  the  Avon,  for  masts  and  shipping  were  vis- 
ible— at  least  the  tops  of  them.  On  the  opposite 
side  of  the  gorge,  which,  we  concluded,  held  the 
river  in  its  depth,  was  a  tall  warehouse  and  a  quay, 
and  thereon  a  black  reception  tent,  decked  with  un- 
dertakers7 plumes. 

Ay,  if  we  could  see  any  thing,  it  would  be  here. 
uLet  us  go  to  the  bridge;  I  used  to  know  the 
bridge-keeper,"  said  my  Cousin  Patience. 

And,  delighted  at  the  idea  of  even  one  problem- 
atical friend  in  our  crowded  desolation,  we  threaded 
our  way  on,  eager  to  attack  the  bridge-keeper. 

Alas!  he  was  gone,  and  another  reigned  in  his 
stead — a  bridge-keeper  who  knew  not  Patience ! 

"Can't  pass,  ladies;  bridge  closed  for  the  next 
three  hours." 

Patience — who  with  humble  folk  has  the  most 
winning  way  I  ever  knew — "put  the  comether"  of 
her  eyes  and  smile  remorselessly  on  him,  but  in 
vain. 


120  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

"  Can't  let  you  in,  miss;  'twould  be  as  much  as 
my  head  was  worth." 

"  But,  my  man,  where  can  we  go  ?" 

"Beally,  I  don't  know,  miss,  or  I'd  say.  Where 
them  folk  stand  is  the  best,  but  they  be  standing 
ever  since  the  bridge  was  open.  The  wharf,  now— 

"Ay,  the  ship-building  wharf — a  capital  place, 
if  we  could  only  get  admission." 

"Ladies" — and  a  decent  young  woman,  with  a 
child  in  her  arms,  came  courtesying  up — "us  do 
let  7un  through  our  cottage  on  to  th'  warf  for  a 
penny.  Won  ye  come  ?" 

"  A  penny !  It's  the  cheapest  sight-seeing  that 
ever  I  knew  or  heard  of,"  said  I,  as  we  followed  our 
new  friend  into  a  shipwright's  yard  directly  oppo- 
site "  the  show."  There,  armed  with  three  chairs, 
and  just  glancing  round  and  discovering  that  we 
formed  part  of  a  decent  gathering  of  working-peo- 
ple, we  settled  contentedly  under  shelter  of  a  great 
lilac-tree  that  stretched  out  of  the  cottage  garden. 

A  curiously  quiet  spot,  even  though  all  around 
were  small  congregations  of  laborers  and  their  fam- 
ilies, of  every  age — the  babies  held  up  in  arms,  the 
elders  seated  or  standing.  One  old,  old  woman  was 
propped  on  chairs,  and  sat  there,  half  stupefied,  as  if 
she  had  not  felt  the  out-of-door  air  for  years ;  some- 
times looking  about  her,  nodding  her  head,  and 
smiling  foolishly.  Now  and  then  arose  an  outcry 
of  mothers,  whose  brats,  with  the  usual  duck-like 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        121 

propensity,  would  insist  on  waddling  down  to  where 
the  water  kindly  shallowed  to  the  edge  of  the  wharf, 
whence,  doubtless,  many  a  good  ship  had  been 
launched.  Otherwise  the  place  was  wonderfully 
still — no  crowding,  no  pushing.  We  just  sat  at 
our  ease,  and  contemplated  the  scene,  which  was 
divided  from  us  by  what  Bristolians  politely,  but 
somewhat  imaginatively,  call  "the  river."  In  the 
foreground,  a  slow,  leaden-colored  stream,  rather 
canal -like  and  narrow.  On  it,  close  inshore,  lay  a 
beautiful  yacht,  the  owners  lounging  about  in  the 
various  picturesque  costumes  and  attitudes  that 
gentlemen  sailors  indulge  in.  Opposite,  near  the 
landing-quay,  was  a  large,  gayly-dressed  ship,  the 
Morning  Star,  her  decks  thronged  with  ladies.  The 
quay  itself  was  sprinkled  with  moving  groups,  va- 
rious in  color — black,  white,  and  red.  Beyond,  in 
a  square  rampart,  was  a  mass  entirely  red — the 
motionless  lines  of  horse-guards ;  and  beyond  that 
again,  the  long  vista  of  Princes  Street,  down  each 
side  of  which  were  windows,  balconies,  platforms 
alive  with  heads,  while  above  them  innumerable 
flags  made  two  waving  lines  of  bright  color,  van- 
ishing into  dim  perspective.  On  the  left  hand  the 
river  wore  the  same  gaudy  festival  air,  for  every 
ship  was  dressed  all  over  with  colors  half-mast  high.  * 
and  in  many  parts  long  "strings"  of  flags  were  sus- 
pended from  some  mast  to  some  wharf-window  on 
shore.  It  might  have  been  a  triumph  or  a  festival 
F 


122  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

but  for  the  extraordinary  quietness  of  the  multitude, 
and  the  strange  effect  of  the  incessant  minute-guns 
and  tolling  of  the  church-bells. 

"  How  thick  they  stand  on  Brandon  Hill !"  said 
Faith ;  and  truly  the  people  there  were  clustering 
like  a  living  wall.  Above,  the  white  houses  of 
Clifton  came  out  sharply  against  the  clear  sky, 
while,  gradually  sloping  downward,  habitations 
thickened  and  thickened,  till  it  became  the  good 
old  smoky  city  of  Bristol,  between  which,  right 
and  left,  the  grimy  Avon  flows. 

Hark!  a  louder  gun,  and  a  stirring  among  the 
black  gowns,  and  white  liveries,  and  red  uniforms 
scattered  over  the  quay.  They  conglomerate  in  a 
formal  cluster.  The  black,  white,  and  gray  crowd 
on  the  decks  of  the  Morning  Star  becomes  extra 
lively,  then  steadies  into  expectation.  Somehow, 
from  this  and  from  some  vague  murmurs  about  us, 
we  learn  that  "  she's  coming."  Only  the  ship  with 
its  lifeless  freight.  Poor  old  man !  England  can 
not  say  that  "he  is  coming!"  No  bursting  of 
cheers — no  striking  up  of  the  known  English  tune, 
welcome  to  many  a  "  conquering  hero."  There  is 
a  silent  pressing  forward  of  the  crowd  on  shore, 
and  the  young  owner  of  the  yacht  alongside  mounts 
the  poop  for  a  better  view,  looks  down  the  river  a 
minute  or  two,  then  takes  off  his  cap,  and  stands 
with  his  black  curls  bared — motionless ;  for,  glid- 
ing up  the  centre  of  the  river,  her  busy  paddle- 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        123 

wheels  turning  slowly,  slowly,  in  a  strange,  funereal 
motion,  that  suited  well  her  black  hull  and  black 
masts,  comes  the  little  steamer  Star,  which  brought 
from  the  Caradoc,  and  is  about  to  land  on  his  native 
shore — the  body. 

Nothing  but  that!  Nothing  left,  after  Alma, 
Balaklava,  Inkermann — after  the  summer's  marches 
and  the  winter's  siege — after  months  and  months 
of  hardship,  danger,  and  anxiety,  chronicled  by 
those  honest,  simple,  soldier-like  dispatches,  which 
England  used  to  read,  week  after  week,  with  a  true 
English  pride  in  "  our  general" — nothing  but  that 
which  you  see  under  a  small  black  canopy  on  the 
after  deck,  ranged  round  which,  in  a  ring  of  scarlet, 
the  mourners  stand. 

She  steams  slowly  up,  the  little  vessel  that  looks 
so  like  a  bier ;  on  either  side  of  her  follow  two 
long,  long  lines  of  boats,  the  rowers  all  in  white 
shirt-sleeves,  black  neckcloths,  and  a  black  band 
round  the  left  arm,  dropping  regular  noiseless  oars. 
Now  she  comes  nearer ;  you  can  distinctly  trace  on 
the  deck  a  black  outline  of  the  shape  familiar 
enough  to  us  all.  Her  steam  still  slackens;  the 
boats  slip  out  of  the  line  of  procession,  and  gather 
round  her.  The  moving  groups  collect  in  a  mass 
on  the  edge  of  the  quay ;  you  may  see  the  clergy- 
men's fluttering  surplices,  the  corporation's  gaudy 
gowns,  and  the  gray  or  bald  head  of  more  than  one 
old  soldier  standing  perfectly  still.  Gradually  ev- 


124  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

ery  head  is  uncovered ;  the  oars  are  simultaneously 
lifted — a  rising  forest — and  held  aloft  in  salutation. 
But  all  is  silence  except  the  occasional  toll  from  St. 
Mary  Kedclyffe  tower,  the  boom  of  a  minute-gun, 
and  the  faint  splash  of  the  steamer's  paddles.  Now 
they  stop ;  she  is  close  inshore ;  those  waiting  for 
her  go  at  once  on  deck. 

Ay,  the  old  soldier  has  come  home. 

That  return  home  of  a  hero  unvictorious,  a  com- 
mander not  unblamed — a  general  who  died  worn 
out  after  a  great  error  and  check — history  will  re- 
member as  one  of  her  saddest  and  most  touching 
chronicles.  "Where  were  all  the  honest  fault-find- 
ings and  the  malicious  slanders,  which  he  bore  alike 
in  such  mute  courage — where  were  they  now  ? 

"  An  old  man 

Is  come  to  lay  his  weary  bones  among  you : 
Give  him  a  little  earth,  for  charity." 

As  the  body  was  landed,  one  clear,  prolonged 
melancholy  bugle-note  came  from  over  the  water, 
piercing,  almost  like  the  cry  of  a  woman;  then  a 
nodding  of  undertakers7  plumes,  and  a  moving  of 
black  velvet  housings,  as  passed  slowly  along  the 
quay  the  last  carriage  in  which  we  all  shall  safely 
ride.  It  was  no  funeral  car — a  simple  hearse,  with 
a  few  mourning  coaches  following.  The  troop  of 
horse-guards  closed  in  behind,  and  then  up  the 
thronged,  hushed,  gaudy  avenue  of  Princes  Street 
the  procession  went,  melting  away  into  a  dim  mass, 


AN  OLD  SOLDIER'S  COMING  HOME.        125 

out  of  which  came,  at  intervals,  in  shrill  fife-tones, 
the  monotonous,  continually  repeated  notes  of  the 
Dead  March  in  Saul,  the  saddest  and  yet  sweetest 
funeral  tune  that  ever  was  written. 

And  so  they  carried  the  old  soldier  home,  and 
gathered  him  to  his  fathers. 

"  Patience,"  said  I,  when,  after  a  pause  so  long 
that  our  neighbor  sight-seers  began  to  move  away, 
and  the  yard  was  becoming  cleared,  we  still  stood 
on  our  three  chairs,  gazing  over  the  river  in  the  di- 
rection of  Princes  Street— "  well,  Patience?" 

She  had  pulled  down  the  blue  veil,  and  Faith 
was  busy  hiding  away  her  pocket-handkerchief. 
We  walked  silently  along  the  river-side  toward 
Clifton. 


126  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 


|)eople'0 

SHE  stopped  to  coax  out  of  the  gutter  a  small 
dirty  urchin,  struggling  along  with  a  still  smaller 
and  dirtier  urchin  in  its  arms.  She  certainly  has 
the  kindest  and  motherliest  heart  in  the  world,  this 
matron  friend  of  mine.  "  Oh,"  she  said,  as  we  trav- 
ersed the  muggy  and  muddy  London  street,  paus- 
ing often,  for  she  was  attracted  by  every  form  of 
infantile  tribulation,  "oh,  what  a  life  they  lead, 
poor  people's  children !  If  we  could  only  carry 
out  the  plan  I  was  talking  of,  and  set  up  in  every 
parish  of  every  large  town  a  public  nursery." 

Now  the  question  of  public  nurseries  happened 
to  be  the  one  uppermost  in  her  benevolence  at 
present,  and  I  was  going  with  her  to  see  an  estab- 
lishment of  the  kind.  It  interested  me  as  being 
one  of  the  few  charitable  "  notions"  which  strike  at 
the  root  of  an  evil,  instead  of  lopping  off  a  few  of 
its  topmost  branches ;  for  certainly,  looking  at  the 
swarm  of  children  one  meets  in  such  a  walk  as  this, 
and  speculating  on  the  homes  they  spring  up  in, 
and  the  dangers  they  hourly  eucounter,  it  is  won- 
derful how  they  contrive  to  struggle  up,  even  to 
that  early  phase  of  infantile  life  when  the  children 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  127 

of  the  London  poor  appear  on  the  surface  of  society 
— society  which,  from  their  very  birth,  seems  set 
against  them. 

"Poor  little  wretches!  How  can  they  ever 
grow  up  to  be  men  and  women?" 

"  Probably  not  one  fourth  of  them  do,97  said 

Mrs. ,  whom  I  will  call,  after  the  good  old 

Baxterian  fashion,  Mrs.  Readyhand.  "In  Man- 
chester, not  one  half  of  the  children  born  survive 
to  their  second  year.  Think  of  all  which  that  fact 
implies — of  the  multitude  of  tender  lives  fading 
out  in  suffering ;  the  array  of  little  coffins  and  tiny 
graves.  And  the  mothers — one  knows  not  which 
to  pity  most ;  the  ever-recurring  pang  of  the  loss 
of  a  child,  or  the  gradual  callousness  which  ceases 
to  feel  such  a  loss  at  all." 

"What  a  percentage  of  deaths!  and  in  the  first 
year !" 

"  Of  course,  larger  in  the  first  than  any  succeed- 
ing. You  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  rear  a  young 
baby ;  the  constant  attention  required — the  infin- 
itesimally  small  ills  which  are  death  to  the  tender 
thing,  and  which  motherly  care,  and  that  only,  can 
or  will  avert.  Why,  when  I  have  left  my  babies 
snug  in  their  warm  nursery,  and  gone  down  to 
speak  to  our  charwoman,  and  seen  her  sitting  in 
the  wash-house  suckling  a  poor  little  wizzened 
creature,  fretful  with  pain  or  drowsy  with  drug- 
ging, while  standing  by  was  the  small  seven-year- 


128  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

old  nurs?,  or  the  worse  nurse  still,  some  dirty, 
drunken  old  crone,  who  was  paid  a  few  pence  for 
keeping  the  infant,  and  bringing  it  to  its  mother  for 
one  natural  meal  in  the  day — my  dear,  when  I  have 
seen  all  this,  I  have  wondered  that  all  the  mothers 
in  England — well-to-do  mothers,  who  can  afford  the 
leisure  and  luxury  of  saving  their  children's  lives 
— do  not  rise  up,  and  try  to  establish  in  every  town 
where  the  women  have  to  go  out  to  work — " 

"  Public  nurseries  ?" 

"  Exactly,"  said  Mrs.  Eeadyhand.  She  proceed- 
ed to  inform  me  of  a  plan  she  had  for  the  benefit 
of  our  particular  district  of  the  metropolis — a  plan 
that  would  require  at  least  a  twenty-four  matron- 
power  in  its  working  out,  the  onus  of  which  work- 
ing out  lay,  and  would  lie  apparently,  on  her  own 
single  pair  of  already  well-filled  hands. 

I  felt  a  certain  involuntary  blush  at  the  little  / 
did — I  and  the  rest  of  us  who  have  to  use  our  pens 
instead  of  our  hands  in  daily  bread-winning — for 
the  helping  of  what  pulpit  eloquence  would  call 
"our  poorer  brethren"  or  sisters;  especially  those 
our  sisters  whom  we  sometimes  shrink  from  ac- 
knowledging as  such — hard-handed,  stupid-headed, 
dull-hearted — living  from  infancy  a  life  so  coarse 
and  rude  that  womanly  instincts  become  blunted, 
womanly  affections  deadened;  till  the  creature 
sinks  down  to  an  almost  brutal  level,  the  mere 
drudging,  suffering,  child-bearing  feminine  of  man. 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN;         129 

Child-bearing !  ay,  that  is  what  makes  the  ineffable 
sadness  of  the  case.  What  hope  is  there  for  the 
children  of  such  mothers — mothers  whom  nothing 
can  exempt  from  the  daily  duty  of  earning  daily 
bread?  mothers  who  have  to  toil  in  factories;  to 
stand  all  day  at  washing-tubs ;  to  go  out  charring, 
or  nursing,  or  slop-working,  or  any  of  the  nameless 
out-door  avocations  by  which  women  in  great 
towns  contrive  to  keep  their  families  a  degree 
above  starvation ;  families  whom  no  Malthusian 
laws  can  hinder  from  following  the  higher  natural 
law:  "Increase,  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the 
earth." 

Eeplenish  the  earth!  With  what?  With  lives 
so  frail  that  their  necessary  and  swift  decadence  is 
to  death.  Or,  escaping  that — passing  safely  by  the 
pitfalls  that  lie  in  wait  for  their  poor  little  tottering 
feet  every  day  of  every  week,  every  hour  of  every 
day — what  do  we  gain  ?  A  puny,  weak,  unhealthy, 
deteriorated  race — a  race  of  which  common  sense 
and  common  feeling  are  oftentimes  fain  to  believe 
that  it  would  have  been  easier  for  itself  and  its  suc- 
cessors had  it  laid  its  baby  bones  among  the  hund- 
reds more  that  pile  our  church-yards  with  tiny 
mounds  long  since  forgotten;  for  it  is  only  the 
"upper  classes"  who  can  afford  to  grieve  and  to  re- 
member. 

We  went  on  our  way.  It  was  a  bright  winter 
noon.  Our  "district"  happened  to  be  in  the  par- 
F2 


130  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

oxysms  of  an  election  more  virulently  contested 
than  is  frequent  in  the  busy  metropolis.  There 
was  a  polling-booth  in  our  High  Street,  and  all  our 
usually  quiet  semi-suburban  streets  were  frescoed 
with  posters  equally  laudatory  and  vituperative, 
while  dashing  violently  past,  or  standing  lazily  at 
public  houses,  were  partisan  cabs,  well  pasted  over, 
so  as  to  constitute  at  any  other  than  election-time  a 
series  of  locomotive  libels.  All  our  grown-up 
world  was  in  a  state  of  convulsion  as  to  whether 
the  noble  churchman  or  ignoble  Quaker,  the  peer 
or  the  tradesman,  should  represent  us  in  Parlia- 
ment: it  seemed  quite  ridiculous  that  my  friend 
and  I  should  be  devoting  our  attention  to  such  a 
very  small  subject  as  poor  people's  babies. 

"I  suppose  the  election  will  be  decided  by  the 
time  we  return,-'  said  Mrs.  Readyhand.  "  I  think, 
if  we  start  our  nursery,  I  shall  be  inclined  to  beg 
something  from  the  successful  candidate  for  my 
poor  little  babies." 

"But  I  thought  the  nurseries  were  self-support- 
ing?" 

"  Partially  so.  In  fact,  they  ought  to  be  entirely, 
if  there  were  a  sufficient  number  of  children  taken 
in ;  though  I  believe  the  Paris  l  creches/  from  which 
these  two  or  three  nurseries  that  we  have  in  Lon- 
don are  modeled,  were  altogether  commenced  as 
charities." 

"  Who  first  started  the  idea  of  creches?" 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  181 

"One  M.  Marbeau,  so  far  back  as  1844.  Being 
appointed  to  investigate  the  Paris  i  asylums'  (which 
are  equivalent  to  our  Infant  Schools),  and  where 
the  working-mothers  are  in  the  habit  of  leaving  for 
the  day  their  children  from  two  years  old  and  up- 
ward— the  simple  question  struck  him,  What  be- 
comes of  the  said  children  until  they  have  reached 
the  prescribed  two  years?  And,  on  inquirj^,  he 
found  the  same  course  pursued,  with  the  same  ter- 
rible results,  that  we  find  in  every  large  factory- 
town — the  inevitable  separation  of  mother  and  in- 
fant during  working -hours;  the  employment  of 
ignorant  and  brutal  nurses  at  some  trifle  per  day ; 
and  the  enormous  rate  of  infant  mortality." 

"Of  course,  the  child's  best  and  only  nurse  is  its 
mother.  The  mother,  during  her  years  of  child- 
bearing  and  child-rearing,  ought  not  to  labor  out  of 
her  own  home." 

"  My  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Eeadyhand,  with  her  soft, 
kind  smile,  "  how  many  l  ought  nets'  shall  we  find 
in  the  present  condition  of  society — stumbling- 
blocks  that  we  can  not  apparently,  by  any  human 
possibility,  overleap  or  remove?  Our  only  chance 
is  to  creep  round  them.  This  is  just  what  M.  Mar- 
beau  did.  Granting — what  we  must  grant,  I  fear, 
at  least  for  many  years  to  come — that  the  separa- 
tion of  the  working-mother  and  her  child  is  abso- 
lutely inevitable,  the  next  best  thing  to  be  done  is 
to  render  that  separation  as  little  harmful  as  possi- 


132  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

ble.  To  this  end,  it  is  clear  that  far  safer  than  the 
care  of  ill-paid,  ignorant,  accidental  nurses  would 
be  a  public  institution,  on  the  plan  of  the  asylums, 
open  to  inspection  and  direction  from  the  better-in- 
formed class,  having  all  the  advantages  and  cheap- 
ness of  combination.  And  so  M.  Marbeau  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  creche." 

"  And  started  it?" 

"  Yes.  At  Chaillot  first — one  of  the  worst  Paris- 
ian suburbs;  fitting  up  a  room  in  the  commonest 
way  with  a  few  cradles  and  chairs;  choosing  for 
nurses  two  poor  women  out  of  work,  who  were  to 
be  paid  some  small  sum — I  believe  about  twopence 
a  day — by  the  mothers,  all  the  other  expenses  be- 
ing defrayed  by  charity." 

"The  plan  answered?" 

11  Excellently.  Within  two  years  there  were  nine 
creches  flourishing  in  the  poorest  quarters  of  Paris. 
This  was  1846 ;  since  then  they  have  still  multi- 
plied, their  influence  and  opportunities  of  good  in- 
creasing in  the  same  ratio.  From  a  single  room 
they  have  advanced  to  kitchens,  wash-houses,  work- 
rooms, gardens,  and  even  to  the  distribution  of 
soups,  porridge,  etc.,  to  the  poor  mothers  when,  at 
stated  times — generally  twice  a  day — they  come  to 
suckle  their  children." 

"  And  for  how  many  hours  are  the  little  crea- 
tures left  there?" 

"  From  6  A.M.  to  8  P.M.,  the  regular  work-hours 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  133 

of  Paris — a  long  day,  is  it  not  ?  But,  to  show  that 
this  absence  does  not  weaken  the  motherly  love — 
very  unlikely  it  could — I  have  heard  it  noted  that 
on  Sundays  and  holidays  such  a  thing  is  hardly 
known  as  a  baby  being  left  at  the  cr&che." 

"Poor  mothers!  how  they  must  enjoy  a  day's 
nursing!" 

"  Yes;  and  of  a  healthy,  merry  brat,  who  has 
been  all  the  week  well-warmed,  well-washed,  well- 
tended,  and  well-fed,  instead  of  fretting  and  puling 
in  filth,  cold,  and  neglect,  or  lying  stupid  and  sickly, 
dosed  to  death  with  sleeping  powders.  My  dear," 
added  Mrs.  Eeadyhand,  after  pausing  once  again 
to  allay  about  the  tenth  case  of  infant  woe  which 
had  caught  her  eyes  or  ears  along  these  wretched 
streets  in  which  we  were  now  penetrating,  "  my 
dear,  let  political  economists  and  philanthropists 
work  away  as  much  as  they  like  among  the  labor- 
ing or  non-laboring  classes — there  is  room  enough 
for  us  all.  But,  for  my  part,  I  do  wish  something 
could  be  done  for  the  little  ones — the  helpless, 
harmless  creatures  in  whom  lies  the  future  of  the 
community." 

There  was  great  truth  in  what  she  said.  Some- 
times, God  knows,  in  portions  of  this  generation, 
vice  and  misery  seem  so  ingrafted,  that  one  gets 
hopeless  of  cure  on  this  side  death,  and  can  only 
give  back  the  corrupted  race  into  His  hands,  believ- 
ing in  His  final  healing.  But  with  the  new  gener- 


134  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

ation  there  is  always  hope.  Mrs.  Eeadyhand  was 
not  far  wrong  when  she  inclined  to  begin  at  the 
root  of  things — to  take  care  of  the  babies. 

"But  you  did  not  tell  me,"  I  said,  "how  and 
when  the  notion  of  the  Parisian  creches  was  repro- 
duced here  in  London?" 

"Only  in  three  or  four  instances,  and  that  of 
late  years,  and  by  the  exertions  of  private  individ- 
uals. One  lady  kept  hers  afloat  solely  at  her  own 
expense  for  months,  and  went  to  inspect  it  daily ; 
another,  a  clergyman's  wife,  did  the  same.  The 
nursery  we  are  going  to  visit  to-day  is  attached  to 
a  Eagged  School  and  a  Dissenting  chapel.  But 
these,  not  being  known  publicly  enough  for  self- 
support,  and  dependent  only  on  the  charity  of  their 
originators,  have  not  prospered  like  the  creches  of 
our  neighbors.  I  think,"  she  added,  "that  the 
cause  of  failure,  if  failure  has  been,  is,  that  the  ques- 
tion has  been  made  too  much  that  of  sect  instead 
of  wide  Christian  benevolence,  which  it  ought  to 
be,  you  know." 

"  Certainly.  Half  a  dozen  conflicting  creeds 
could  not  do  much  harm  to  a  little  sucking-baby." 

"  Still,  my  dear,  we  must  take  things  as  they  are, 
and  try  to  improve  them." 

Here  she  stopped,  for  we  had  talked  ourselves 
out  of  the  bearings  of  our  course,  and  got  into  a 
labyrinth  of  poor  and  dirty  streets.  Mrs.  Ready- 
hand  made  various  inquiries  for  the Public 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  135 

Nursery — which,  however,  seemed  any  thing  but 
public,  for  it  was  only  with  the  aid  of  great  patience 
and  a  friendly  policeman  that  we  lighted  upon  it 
at  all. 

My  friend  pointed  to  the  entrance,  over  which 
was  written,  "  Public  Nursery,  Infant  Bagged 
School,  and  Laundry." 

"  What  a  combination  of  good  things !  Did  you 
never  see  a  Bagged  School  ?  Then  we  will  take  a 
peep  in  the  first.  This  seems  to  be  the  door." 

Which  door  opening,  disclosed  a  tolerably  large 
and  lofty  room,  rather  dark  and  close  it  seemed  to 
us,  just  passing  out  of  the  bright  frosty  air;  and  I, 
unused  to  schools,  was  sensible  of  a  great  oppres- 
sion and  confusion  of  little  tongues,  and  an  inces- 
sant commotion  of  little  bodies,  which  only  partially 
subsided  when  the  mistress,  blowing  a  warning- 
whistle — her  voice  would  have  been  utterly  useless 
— dispatched  them  to  a  raised  succession  of  bench- 
es, and  came  forward  to  speak  to  the  visitors. 

She  was  a  decent,  kindly -looking  soul,  with  a 
care-worn,  intelligent  face,  the  mouth  and  chin  of 
which  indicated  both  the  power  and  the  habit  of 
ruling  even  a  Bagged  School. 

An  Infant  Bagged  School !  What  pictures  the 
name  implies ! — pictures  of  the  very  scum  of  baby- 
hood, picked  out  of  gutters,  alleys,  reeking  cellars ; 
wretched  babyhood,  from  its  very  birth-hour  enter- 
ing on  its  only  inheritance — want,  brutality,  and 
crime. 


136  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

Yet  here  were  goodly  rows  of  small  plants  of  liu 
manity,  ranged,  height  above  height,  in  the  usual 
fashion  peculiar  to  Infant  Schools  and  green-houses 
—tidy,  clean,  unragged  children — wan  and  sharp- 
visaged,  to  be  sure,  but  one  finds  that  look  in  every 
poor  London  child.  Nevertheless,  these  were  a  de- 
cent array,  sprinkled  with  two  or  three  faces  bright 
and  pretty  enough  for  any  rank  or  class  of  tiny 
girlhood.  There  might  have  been  boys  likewise ; 
but  sex  was  quite  undistinguishable. 

At  the  opposite  end,  near  the  fire — fenced  in  a 
safe  corner  by  a  semicircle  of  forms,  and  guarded 
by  one  or  two  elder  girls — was  a  den  of  much 
smaller  fry,  some  not  more  than  eight-months-old 
infants,  squatting,  or  crawling,  or  sitting  bolt  up- 
right against  the  wall,  staring  right  before  them 
with  an  air  of  solemn  interest. 

"  These  are  very  little  scholars,"  said  Mrs.  Eeady- 
hand,  smiling,  and  taking  up  one  in  her  arms. 

u  Bless  you,  ma'am,  they  do  no  harm !  They  are 
as  quiet  as  mice,  and  as  good  as  gold.  The  elder 
ones  bring  them,  and  look  after  them ;  it's  a  great 
relief  to  the  mothers  to  have  them  safe  here." 

"But  would  they  not  be  better  in  the  nursery 
up  stairs  ?" 

"  Why,  you  see,  I  let  them  in  free,  and  up  stairs 
they  would  have  to  pay ;  and  fourpence  a  day  is  a 
great  deal  to  some  folk.  Besides— 

Here  the  schoolmistress  hesitated,  and  looked  as 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  137 

if  she  could  say  a  little  more,  if  she  would,  concern- 
ing "up  stairs." 

"But  you  think,  were  it  not  for  the  payment, 
working  mothers  would  take  advantage  of  the  nurs- 
ery?"  ' 

"Maybe — yes,  I  know  they  would.  They  must 
get  the  children  out  of  the  way  son.ehow.  But 
poor  people  don't  easily  fall  into  new  plans ;  and, 
besides,  they  take  things  rather  coolly  up  stairs. 
They  don't  do  as  I  do  with  my  scholars — hunt 
them  out  of  lanes,  and  courts,  and  alleys,  and  make 
them  come  to  school." 

"  Ay,  that  is  the  secret."  And  I  fancy  my  friend 
and  I  both  thought  of  the  words,  "  Go  forth  into 
the  highways  and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to  come 
in." 

We  had  some  more  talk  with  the  very  sensible 
schoolmistress,  who  exhibited  her  charge  with  no 
small  pride,  especially  one — evidently  her  favorite 
—a  well-grown  girl  of  eleven  or  twelve,  neat,  fair- 
faced,  with  the  brightest,  most  intelligent  blue  eyes. 

"  She  is  deaf  and  dumb,  ladies.  When  she  came 
she  knew  nothing,  and  could  not  make  a  sound. 
Now  she  is  monitress,  and  can  teach  a  class  its  let- 
ters." 

How  this  was  managed  I  could  not  understand ; 
but  the  sweet-faced  deaf  mute  was  as  busy  as  pos- 
sible, wand  in  hand,  in  the  centre  of  a  circle  of 
small  elves,  who  were  making  frantic  struggles 


138  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

after  the  acquirement  of  a  large  pasteboard  alpha- 
bet. And  admirably  she  marshaled,  round  and 
round  the  room,  the  general  vocal  procession  that 
followed,  in  which  wonderful  performance  the  deaf 
little  maid,  I  thought,  was  the  most  enviable  of  the 
company. 

There  was  another  small  damsel  whom  I  could 
not  help  noticing — brown-skinned,  dark-eyed,  slen- 
der-limbed— of  painfully  precocious  beauty  and  in- 
telligence, the  sort  of  creature  to  hang  bangles  on, 
and  make  an  Indian  princess  of;  or  the  kind  of  elf 
who,  you  might  feel  sure,  appeared  of  nights  out  of 
a  gigantic  convolvulus  or  a  mammoth  rose,  under 
the  admirably  arranged  moonlight  of  Messrs.  Grieve 
and  Telbin,  in  a  Hay  market  extravaganza. 

"To  this  complexion  she  must  come  at  last!" 
thought  I,  watching  the  agile  grace  of  her  descent 
from  the  semicircle,  the  glitter  of  some  foreign-look- 
ing armlet  on  her  delicate  brown  arm,  and  the  evi- 
dent consciousness  of  that,  and  of  her  own  extreme 
prettiness,  with  which  the  poor  child  joined  the 
troop  of  her  companions — a  troop  that  irresistibly 
inclined  one  to  parody  Eobert  Browning's  "  great- 
hearted gentlemen"  as  it  went 

* '  Marching  along,  twenty-score  strong, 
Ragged-school  children,  singing  this  song" — 

a  song  which  was  meant  to  be  explanatory  of  dif- 
ferent trades,  with  imitative  mechanical  accompa- 
niments, greatly  satisfactory — to  the  performers. 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  139 

Even  the  little  babes  in  the  den  crept  on  all-fours 
to  its  outermost  barrier,  admiringly  clapping  small 
dirty  hands. 

No — I  beg  pardon,  excellent  Eagged  School  mis- 
tress— they  were  not  dirty.  I  never  saw  a  cleaner, 
neater,  wholesomer  charity-school.  When  one 
thought  of  the  horrible  London  alleys  they  came 
out  of  and  went  back  to,  their  tidiness  was  really 
miraculous. 

"  I  teach  the  bigger  ones  to  mend  their  things," 
said  the  mistress  when  we  noticed  this ;  "  and  some- 
times kind  ladies  send  us  parcels  of  old  clothes,  and 
we  manage  to  alter  and  contrive.  Generally,  the 
children  get  decently  clothed  when  they  have  been 
at  school  a  little  while.  Besides,  we  give  them 
some  sort  of  a  dinner,  and  it  is  often  quite  late  be- 
fore we  send  them  home." 

"  What  homes  some  of  these  must  be !" 

"Likely  enough.  But  we  take  all  sorts;  we 
ask  no  questions.  You  see,  when  they  first  come 
here,  they  are  such  little  things.  Nothing  like  be- 
ginning in  time." 

"But  you  don't  teach  them  all  day  over?" 

"Bless  you,  no;  I  only  let  them  amuse  them- 
selves, and  keep  them  out  of  mischief — babies  and 
all." 

"  Ah !  that  reminds  me  we  must  go  and  see  the 
babies  up  stairs,"  said  Mrs.  Eeadyhand,  giving  up 
the  chubby  boy  whom  she  had  had  in  her  arms  all 


140  STUDIES  FKOM   LIFE. 

this  while,  and  who  seemed  very  unwilling  to  be  so 
relinquished. 

"But  would  you  like  to  question  any  of  my 
children  first?  Here" — following  my  eye,  and 
summoning  (I  am  not  sure  that  if  you  always  do 
this  it  will  be  good  for  her,  Mrs.  Schoolmistress) 
that  prettiest  and  most  intelligent  brown -faced 
maiden.  She  came,  accompanied  by  a  smaller  and 
plainer  sister,  and  answered  various  inquiries  man- 
nerly enough,  though  with  scarcely  as  many  blushes 
as  one  likes  to  see  in  a  child. 

"  My  name  is ;  my  sister's ."  [I  could 

not  make  out  either.]  "  We  came  from  the  West 
Indies.  Father  was  a  cook."  [Oh,  my  Indian  prin- 
cess !]  "  Father  is  dead.  Mother  makes  soy ;  she 
sells  it.  She  sells  soy,  and — "  [Here  a  long  list 
of  sauces,  etc.,  ran  glibly  off  like  a  shop-advertise- 
ment.] "  That  is  how  we  live.  We  are  very  poor. 
Yes,  we  like  coming  to  school  very  much.  We 
shall  learn  to  help  mother  in  time."  And  so  on, 
and  so  on. 

I  am  about  to  inquire  and  remonstrate  concern- 
ing the  shiny  bracelet,  which  looks  so  odd  and  out 
of  place  in  a  Eagged  School.  But,  peering  into 
the  little  girl's  face,  a  certain  shyness  comes  over 
me,  as  if  I  had  no  business  to  pull  the  mote  out  of 
the  eye  of  the  poor  man's  child.  Besides,  she  elders 
it  with  such  tender  protection  over  the  little  sister ; 
and  there  she  is,  turning  to  pat,  and  looking  as  if 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN..  141 

she  greatly  wanted  to  cuddle,  that  rolly-polly  fel< 
low,  who  is  stretching  out  of  the  babies'  den,  and 
clutching  at  her  frock.  Who  knows,  Bagged-School 
influences  may  end  in  her  growing  up  as  some  kind 
young  mistress's  pretty  nurse-maid)  instead  of  the 
gauzy  fairy  of  Haymarket  foot-lights,  with  a  future 
of — Heaven  knows ! 

But  Mrs.  Eeadyhand  was  longing  after  her  public 
nursery,  so  we  prepared  to  leave  the  good  school- 
mistress and  her  flock,  the  younger  portion  of  which, 
my  friend  again  observed,  "  would  be  better  up 
stairs." 

"  Please  don't  say  so,  ma'am,"  said  the  mistress, 
earnestly  ;  "  they  do  no  harm.  They  are  very  good 
little  things.  Indeed,  I  couldn't  bear  to  part  with 
my  little  ones." 

"  That  is  the  right  sort  of  woman,"  said  Mrs. 
Eeadyhand,  as  we  ascended  to  the  nursery. 

It  was  a  large  room,  scrupulously  clean  and  neat. 
At  the  farther  end  was  a  row  of  eight  or  ten  iron 
swinging-cots,  with  mattresses  and  coverings.  There 
was  a  coal-cellar  and  linen-closet,  a  large  table,  and 
several  chairs — some  for  great,  some  for  little  peo- 
ple. The  whole  room  was  in  perfect  order — the 
boarded  floor  without  stain  or  dust.  The  atmos- 
phere, rigidly  sanitary  and  airy;  in  fact,  rather  too 
airy,  for  the  fire  was  powerless  to  warm  it  beyond 
its  immediate  vicinity.  There  was  a  decently-car- 
peted hearth,  a  chair,  a  round  stand,  etc.,  in  which 


142  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

snug  little   encampment,  with  tier  tea-things  laid, 
and  her  newspaper  in  her  hand,  sat — the  nurse. 

Now,  my  good  nurse,  I  have  no  wish  to  malign 
you.  You  were  a  very  decent,  respectable,  fat, 
motherly  body,  with  an  apron  as  spotless  as  your 
floor,  and  as  smooth  as  your  countenance.  1  have 
no  doubt  you  know  your  duty,  and  do  it,  too,  within 
its  prescribed  limits.  But  how  could  you  sit  sipping 
your  tea,  and  reading  your  newspaper  over  your 
cosy  fire,  while  in  the  arctic  regions  beyond — out- 
side the  verge  of  carpeting — three  blue-nosed,  red- 
fingered  little  nurse-maids  were  vainly  trying  to 
soothe  or  to  keep  in  order  five  or  six  babies,  from 
the  small  month-old  lump  of  helplessness  to  the 
big,  unruly  ten-months7  brat,  which  is  periling  its 
life — as  every  mother  knows — by  various  ingenious 
exploits  about  once  in  five  minutes  all  day  long. 

"  Ladies,  pray  sit.  Our  ladies  generally  come  of 
mornings.  I  am  very  glad  when  they  do.  I  have  a 
hard  place  here —  (Betsy,  do  keep  that  child  off 
the  carpet.)  They  don't  allow  me  help  enough — 
nothing  like  enough,  ma'am.  Only  these  three  chits 
from  the  Eagged  School —  (Sally,  can't  you  quiet 
that  baby  ?)  Indeed,  ladies,  you  don't  know  what 
it  is  to  look  after  poor  people's  children." 

There  was  a  certain  truth  in  this — a  pitiful  truth 
enough,  though  she  did  not  put  it  so.  No  one, 
whose  sole  experience  in  the  baby-line  lies  among 
the  well-fed,  well-clothed,  well-tended  offspring  of 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN. 

the  respectable  classes,  can  see  without  pain  the 
vast  difference  between  them  and  "  poor  people's 
babies" — especially  the  London  poor :  their  pinched 
faces ;  their  thin,  flaccid  limbs,  shivering  under  the 
smallest  possible  covering  of  threadbare  flannel  and 
worn-out  calico ;  their  withered,  old-like  expression, 
so  different  from  the  round-eyed,  apple-cheeked 
simplicity  that  well-to-do  parents  love :  no  wonder 
it  was  rather  hard  to  keep  in  healthy  satisfied  quiet- 
ness poor  people's  babies — babies,  too,  who  from 
morning  till  night  seldom  or  never  know  what  it  is 
to  cuddle  in  warmly  to  the  natural  nest — the  moth- 
er's own  bosom.  Of  course,  nothing  can  supply  the 
place  of  that ;  and,  of  course,  it  must  be  a  hard  po- 
sition, my  respectable  old  woman,  to  be  nurse  in  a 
public  nursery.  But  surely  you  need  not  have 
talked  so  much  about  it,  or  we  should  have  sympa- 
thized with  you  a  great  deal  more. 

We  began  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the 
six  babies — small,  sickly  creatures  most  of  them — 
sprawling  quietly  on  the  floor,  or  resting  open-eyed 
in  a  sort  of  patient  languor  in  any  position  the  little 
nurse-girls  chose  to  place  them.  There  was  one 
especially  which  kept  up  a  pitiful  wail — not  a  good 
hearty  howl,  but  a  low  moaning,  as  if  it  had  hardly 
strength  to  cry. 

Mrs.Keadyhand  paused  in  her  statistical  inquiries 
about  the  nursery,  which,  however,  were  fast  verging 
into  a  mild  recipience  of  the  nurse's  long  list  of  woes. 


14:4:  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

"Ladies,  you  see  I  haven't  help  enough.  Such 
a  set  of  ignorant  young  chits!  Sally,  can't  you 
keep  that  child  quiet?  Ma'am,  it's  only  fractious; 
not  quite  a  month  old :  I  don't  like  'em  so  young, 
but  then  the  mother  has  to  go  out  charring." 

O  ye  happy  mothers,  languid  and  lovely,  receiv- 
ing in  graceful  negligee  admiring  female  friends, 
who  come  to  congratulate  and  sympathize,  and 
"see  baby" — just  think  of  this! 

My  friend  took  the  matter  into  her  kind  hands. 
"Sally,  my  girl  —  isn't  your  name  Sally? — you 
hardly  know  how  to  hold  so  young  an  infant.  Not 
upright — it  has  not  strength  yet ;  and  its  little  feet 
are  quite  cold..  There,  not  so  near  the  fire ;  you 
would  scorch  its  poor  head.  Give  it  to  me,  please. 
Now,  Sally — "  And,  laying  the  child  across  her 
lap,  she  held  its  blue  feet  in  her  hands,  supplying, 
in  her  own  gentle  way,  various  bits  of  useful  infor- 
mation, verbal  and  practical. 

Nurse  looked  on  with  considerable  dignity  at 
first;  but  in  answer  to  a  hint  about  "food,"  and  a 
commendation  of  the  kind  of  infant  nutriment  sup- 
plied gratis  by  the  nursery,  she  began  busily  to 
prepare  some,  and  the  kettle  at  once  vacated  its 
place  in  favor  of  the  pap-saucepan. 

Gradually  motherly  experience  did  its  work ;  the 
infant  ceased  crying. 

"  It'll  begin  again  the  minute  you  lay  it  down, 
ma'am.  Babies  like  nursing  so;  I  daren't  nurse 
'em,  else  they'd  never  be  out  of  my  arms." 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  145 

"  But  they  soon  learn  to  crawl — rny  children  do. 
I  always  let  them,  as  soon  as  they  can.  Look, 
Betsy — didn't  I  hear  nurse  call  you  Betsy? — you 
have  only  to  keep  near  and  watch  it — see  that  it 
doesn't  hurt  itself,  nor  go  too  far  away  from  the  fire. 
This  is  bitter  weather  for  little  babies.  And,  Sally 
—yes,  you  are  quite  right  to  listen  and  notice ;  al- 
ways do  so  when  nurse  or  the  lady-visitors  talk  to 
you,  and  you'll  learn  every  thing  in  time." 

"  There's  much  need  on't,"  grumbled  the  head- 
functionary  ;  but  her  subordinates  heard  not.  They 
made  quite  a  little  group  round  Mrs.  Eeadyhand, 
each  girl  laden  with  her  small  charge,  whom  she 
handled  very  much  as  she  would  a  doll  or  a  kitten. 
Meanwhile  the  eldest  baby  devoted  its  tender  atten- 
tion to  me,  crawling  about  my  skirts,  and  taking 
hold  of  my  shoe,  looking  up  all  the  while — ugly, 
little,  thin  elf  as  it  was — with  that  soft  infantile 
smile  which  I  defy  any  woman  to  resist.  One 
could  not  well  help  giving  it  a  toss  and  a  dandle, 
and  laughing  when  it  laughed,  even  to  the  missing 
of  many  things  Mrs.  Eeadyhand  was  saying — not 
in  any  formal -way;  she  abhorred  all  cant.  I  did 
not  hear  her  use  one  of  those  irreverently  familiar 
Scripture  phrases  which  abounded  rather  unpleas- 
antly on  the  nurse's  lips,  and  on  the  walls  of  the 
school  below-stairs,  where,  I  fear,  their  large-lettered 
literalness — such  as,  "The  blood  which  cleanseth 
from  all  sin,"  and  "  The  eyes  that  are  over  all" — 
Q 


146  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

must  have  proved  extremely  perplexing  to  infant 
minds.  But  this  is  a  question  the  j  udiciousness  of 
which  can  not  well  be  discussed  here. 

And  when,  on  our  departure,  she  brought  her 
kindly  admonitions  to  a  climax  by  hinting  that  if  , 
the  little  damsels  improved  very  much,  she,  or  oth- 
er ladies  she  knew,  might  possibly  come  and  choose 
their  next  under-nursemaid  out  of  this  very  Rag- 
ged-School nursery,  it  was  really  pleasant  to  see 
the  blushing  brightness  which  ran  over  every  one 
of  the  three  faces,  common  as  they  were,  either  pre- 
maturely sharp  or  hopelessly  dull.  But  the  dullest 
smiled,  and  the  sharpest  listened  with  a  modest 
shyness  while  thus  talked  to.  It  was  the  involun- 
tary confirmation  of  Mrs.  Readyhand's  doctrine — 
the  only  reformatory  hope  of  the  universe— the 
doctrine  of  Love. 

We  talked  much  as  we  went  home — she  and  I 
— about  this  scheme ;  its  wide  possibilities  of  good, 
and  the  defects — where  will  you  not  find  defects  in 
all  schemes  ? — of  its  working  out. 

"  I  object,"  said  I,  "  to  one  great  fact  in  this  pub- 
lic nursery — the  nurse.  Her  heart  is  not  in  the 
matter.  She  is  a  fine  contrast  to  the  excellent  Rag- 
ged-School mistress.  If  I  were  a  lady-visitor,  I'd 
bundle  her  off  immediately." 

i 'My  dear,  you  are  too  summary.  You  might 
not  readily  get  a  better.  Her  situation  is  a  very 
difficult  one  to  fill  properly.  Think  what  it  re- 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  147 

quires.  All  the  common  sense  and  firmness  of  an 
experienced  nurse — all  the  patience  and  tenderness 
of  a  mother.  A  perfect  nurse  would  be  perfect  in- 
deed." 

"  She  isn't.'7 

"Perhaps  she  only  wants  looking  after.  Most 
hired  servants  do.  She  needs  us,  who  habitually 
think  more  deeply  and  act  more  wisely  than  is 
common  with  her  class,  to  take  an  interest  in  her 
duties,  and  thus  show  her  that  they  are  ours  like- 
wise. If  this  were  but  possible !  If  one  could  but 
seek  out  the  rich  idlers  of  our  rank  of  life,  and 
make  their  dreary,  useless  lives  cheerful  by  being 
useful!'7 

"  Useful  to  the  lower  rank  of  workers?" 

"  Exactly.  Think  of  all  the  women  whom  we 
know,  and  what  numbers  that  we  don't  know,  who, 
having  passed  their  first  youth,  are  absolutely  with- 
ering away  for  want  of  something  to  do.  i  Some- 
thing to  do' — that  grand  cry,  spoken  or  silent,  of  all 
unmarried  and  unlikely-to-be-married  womanhood 
— '  oh,  if  I  had  but  something  to  do !'  " 

It  was  very  true;  I  could  have  confirmed  rny 
friend's  remark  by  half  a  dozen  instances  under 
my  own  knowledge. 

11  And  the  grand  difficulty  is  how  to  answer  it. 
What  are  they  to  do  ?" 

"  Surely  no  lack  of  that,  Mrs.  Eeadyhand.  Nev- 
er was  there  a  wider  harvest  nor  fewer  laborers.'7 


148  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

"  Because,  my  dear,  they  don't  know  how  to  fall 
to  work.  They  can't  find  it  out  for  themselves, 
and  in  most  cases  there  is  nobody  to  show  them. 
So  they  sit  moping  and  miserable,  either  scattering 
their  money  in  indiscriminate  lazy  charity,  or  liv- 
ing dependent  on  fathers  and  brothers,  with  abund- 
ance of  time,  and  little  enough  of  money,  ignorant 
that  the  best  beneficence  is  often  not  money  at  all, 
but  time.  Plenty  of  people  have  money  to  spend; 
few  have  sense,  judgment,  and  practical  experience 
enough  to  spend  it  properly." 

"I  understand.  You  want  not  merely  seed,  but 
sowers." 

"  Yes,  busy,  active  sowers.  I  would  like  to  hunt 
them  up  far  and  wide,  and  give  them  work  to  do — 
work  that  would  fill  up  the  blanks  in  the  home- 
duties  they  may  have,  yet  not  interfere  with  the 
rest;  work  that  would  prevent  their  feeling — as  I 
know  scores  of  unmarried  women  do — that  they 
have  somehow  missed  their  part  and  place  in  the 
grand  ever-moving  procession  of  life,  and  have  con- 
sequently no  resource  but  to  lounge  idly,  or  lie  tor- 
pid by  the  wayside  till  death  overtakes  them." 

"  That  is  true.  You  talk  as  if  you  had  been  c  an 
old  young  lady'  j^ourself." 

"I  might  have  been,  and  my  little  daughters 
may  be ;  nobodjr  knows.  Now  what  think  you  ? 
Suppose  we  could  only  give  to  all  the  '  old  young 
ladies,7  as  you  call  them,  one  simple  task  and  duty 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  149 

— the  looking  after  poor  people's  children.  Setting 
aside  all  that  is  done,  or  is  found  impossible  to  do, 
for  the  grown-up  generation,  and  beginning  with 
the  new — beginning  from  the  very  first ;  in  short, 
with—" 

"With  a  public  nursery?  Well,  they  might  do 
worse." 

"I  think  so  indeed,"  replied  Mrs.  Eeadyhand. 

a  Many  a  middle-aged  lady  keeping  house  in 
some  dull  parental  home,  or  tormented  by  a  brood 
of  lively  juvenile  sisters,  might  find  very  consider- 
able peace  of  mind  and  loving-kindness  from  an 
occasional  hour  spent  in  looking  after  poor  people's 
babies — then  not  ending  with  them  as  babies ;  fol- 
lowing them  up  to  childhood — planning  public 
play-grounds  and  public  working-grounds:  I  like 
these  a  great  deal  better  than  even  Infant  Schools. 
Teaching  them  especially — what  ought  to  be  the 
chief  aim  of  all  eleemosynary  aid — how  to  help 
themselves.  Would  not  this  be  one  good  way  of 
silencing  the  lazy  outcry  about ' elevating  the  race?7 
Better,  perhaps,  than — this  sort  of  thing." 

She  pointed  to  an  election-cab,  crammed  inside 
and  out  with  worthy  and  independent  voters,  glo- 
rious in  shirt-sleeves  and  drink,  shouting  at  the  top 
of  their  voices  for  the  successful  candidate. 

"  Lord has  won,  you  see.  Well,  I  am  glad. 

He  is  an  excellent  young  man,  they  say.  Perhaps 
he  may  be  got  to  take  an  interest  in  our  plans. 


150  STUDIES    FROM   LIFE. 

But,  after  all,  those  whom  I  chiefly  look  to  for  aid 
are  what  Mrs.  Ellis  calls  the  Daughters  of  England." 

One  daughter  of  England — type  of  many  more- 
could  not  help  regarding  with  mingled  compunc- 
tion and  respect  a  certain  matron  of  England,  who, 
she  knew,  taught  and  reared  half  a  dozen  children 
of  her  own,  and  yet  managed  to  find  time  for  all 
these  plans  and  doings  in  behalf  of  other  folks' 
children;  and  as,  while  thus  talking,  we  passed 
through  the  heavy -atmosphered,  dirty  streets,  with 
their  evening  loungers  collecting,  and  their  evening 
shop-lamps  beginning  to  flare,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  think  sadly  of  the  great  amount  of  evil  and  mis- 
ery to  be  battled  with,  and  the  comparative  help- 
lessness of  even  the  strongest  hand ;  of  the  infinite 
deal  to  be  done,  and  the  few  who  can  —  without 
contravening  the  great  just  law,  that  charity  begins 
at  home — find  opportunities  of  doing  it. 

"Still,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Eeadyhand,  gently, 
"  there  is  a  wise  saying :  '  Whatever  thy  hand  find- 
eth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might.'  I  know  how  little 
you  can  by  any  possibility  do  in  this  way ;  but 
there  is  one  thing  you  can  do — you  can  write  an 
article." 

u  I  will ;  and  then  some  wiser  head  and  freer 
hand  may  put  into  practice  all  these  things  which 
we  have  been  looking  at  and  talking  over.  I  sup- 
pose I  have  simply  to  relate  facts  as  they  were 
brought  under  our  notice." 


POOR  PEOPLE'S  CHILDREN.  151 

"  That  is  all.  And  who  knows  what  good  might 
come  of  it?"  said  my  friend,  smiling  as  we  reached 
her  door. 

"  Then  most  certainly  I  will  write  my  article." 

I  have  written  it. 


152  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


Companions. 

I  CERTAINLY  do  meet  with  odd  people  on  my 
travels,  though  these  are  neither  numerous  nor  ex- 
tensive, I  having  never  passed  the  bounds  of— 
speaking  Hibernice — my  three  native  countries; 
yet  within  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  I  have 
met  with  characters  enough  to  set  up  a  modern  Sen- 
timental Journey,  and  heard  little  bits  of  histories, 
full  of  nature,  feeling,  or  humor,  that  would  furnish 
studies  for  many  a  novel-writer.  Most  of  these  I 
have  lighted  upon  in  railway  carriages — places 
fruitful  to  one  who  generally  travels  second-class 
and  alone. 

Can  it  be  that  clothes  and  purses  do  not  confer 
that  unquestionable  respectability  which  it  is  gen- 
erally supposed  they  do  ?  else  why,  in  spite  of  silk 
gowns,  unexceptionable  broadcloth,  and  so  on,  can 
first-class  never  trust  itself  to  itself,  but  must  stare, 
in  mute  investigation  of  its  own  merits  and  posi- 
tion, till  within  a  county  or  so  of  its  terminus,  when 
repentance  and  satisfied  gentility  come  quite  too 
late  ?  Now  second-class,  whose  only  passport  is  its 
face,  and  only  safe-conduct  its  civil  behavior,  has 
no  such  qualms,  but  plunges  at  once  into  the  evi- 


TRAVELING   COMPANIONS.  153 

dent  duties  of  traveling  humanity,  and  reaps  corre- 
sponding benefits. 

Nature  certainly  meant  me  for  a  second-class  pas- 
senger. I  can  not  help  taking  a  vivid  interest  in 
every  thing  and  every  body  around  me.  Con- 
vinced that 

"The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man," 

or  woman,  as  it  happens,  I  suffer  no  little  impedi- 
ments to  daunt  me,  and  succumb  to  none  of  those 
slight  annoyances  which  are  grave  evils  to  persons 
of  sensitive  organization.  To  be  sure,  I  have  some- 
times met  with  a  few  inconveniences.  It  was  not 
pleasant  to  be  thrust  lately  into  the  carriage  with 
those  two  newly-married  couples,  of  the  very  low- 
est grade  of  agricultural  life,  especially  when  the 
one  husband,  half-seas  over,  would  balance  sleepily 
between  the  corner  and  his  wife's  shoulder,  and  the 
other  wife  chattered  the  most  coquettish  nonsense 
to  the  other  husband.  Still,  in  one  of  each  pair  I 
could  trace  a  quiet  sturdy  seriousness,  which  led 
me  to  moralize  on  the  future  fate  of  all  four,  and 
even  to  see  a  wise  meaning  in  the  instinctive  con- 
trariety by  which  married  couples  often  choose  one 
another,  and  which,  by  coupling  opposite  faults 
and  opposite  virtues,  frequently  improves  the  char- 
acter of  both. 

Also,  one  wet   day,  I  might  have  liked   other 
company  than  those  six  rough  laborers  who  press- 
ed in,  accompanied  by  the  unmistakable  fustian 
G2 


154  STUDIES  FKOM   LIFE. 

odor,  all  brutish  and  stupid,  and  the  only  "  'cute" 
one  fierce  with  his  wrong  in  having  the  next  car- 
riage closed  in  his  face  by  a  u  gentleman."  How 
the  man  kept  looking  at  his  crushed  bleeding  fin- 
ger, and  muttering  savagely,  "  He'd  none  ha'  done 
it  if  I'd  had  a  good  coat  on  my  back !"  Yet  even 
among  these  it  was  interesting  to  watch  the  care 
with  which  three  or  four  of  them  guarded  each  a 
branch  of  white  sloe-blossom,  to  brighten  some 
wretched  London  attic — the  train  was  going  to 
London,  and  it  was  more  than  interesting — even 
touching,  if  it  had  not  been  so  lamentable  in  its 
indications,  to  see  the  blank  gaze  of  sullen  wonder 
with  which  the  man  with  the  hurt  finger  stared  at 
me  when  I  asked  the  simple  civil  question,  in  the 
commonly  civil  tone  which  we  English  are  apt  to 
think  it  lowers  our  dignity  to  use  to  any  but  our 
equals,  "if  he  disliked  having  the  window  open?" 
He  made  me  not  the  smallest  reply — he  only 
stared.  Poor  fellow!  I  wonder  whether,  in  lav- 
ishing abuse  on  the  boorish  ness  of  the  British  peas- 
ant, it  ever  crosses  the  superior  British  mind  to  try 
the  novel  system  of  teaching  inferiors  politeness 
~by  example  ? 

But  I  am  wandering  from  the  companions  who 
amused  and  occupied  me  during  a  day's  journey 
last  week,  and  who  unconsciously  suggested  this 
article.  Honest  folk !  I  dare  say  it  never  struck 
their  simple  imaginations  that  they  were  decided 


TRAVELING   COMPANIONS.  155 

"characters,"  or  that  "a  chiel"  in  the  corner  was 
"takin'  notes"  of  their  various  peculiarities. 

It  was  a  double  carriage,  meant  for  sixteen,  and 
nearly  full.  Various  comings  and  goings  took 
place  the  first  hour,  which  I  scarcely  observed  till, 
finally  waking  up  out  of  thought,  and  feeling  that 
one  must  take  an  interest  in  something,  rny  rnind 
centred  itself  in  the  other  compartment  on  a  row 
of  black  curls,  slightly  marked  with  gray,  under  a 
sailor-like  sort  of  cap,  and  above  a  very  nautical 
pair  of  shoulders.  Shortly  an  unmistakably  nauti- 
cal voice,  seasoned  with  a  slight  foreign,  or,  as  I 
afterward  discovered,  Jersey  accent,  made  itself 
heard  through  the  clatter  of  tongues  at  their  end 
of  the  carriage  and  the  quiet  silence  of  ours.  The 
passengers  there  consisted  of  three  women  in  black, 
myself,  and  a  gentleman,  who  looked  like  a  clergy- 
man. 

The  black  curls  shook,  and  the  brawny  hands 
gesticulated  more  and  more  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
description  to  some  person  opposite.  Shortly  I  saw 
that  the  whole  compartment,  and  even  those  in  our 
own  who  could  hear,  were  absorbed  in  attending 
to  our  maritime  friend. 

"  When  I  was  becalmed  off  the  Isle  of  France" 
— u  When  I  commanded  the  So-and-so,  trading  with 
the  West  Indies" — "  When  we  ran  ashore  off  the 
coast  of  Guinea" — these  and  similar  phrases  reached 
us — small  fragments  of  conversation,  and  casual  al- 


156  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

lusions  to  lands  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  which 
at  once  arrest  the  attention  and  admiration  of  us 
islanders.  Truly,  if  we  Britons  have  a  weakness, 
it  is  for  those  who  traffic  upon  the  deep  waters. 
The  sea-captain  was,  I  saw,  fast  becoming  the  hero 
of  the  carriage. 

I  could  only  see  his  black  curls;  but  I  was 
amused  by  the  face  opposite  to  him — u  fat,  fair,  and 
forty7' — thoroughly  English,  and  set  off  in  thor- 
oughly English  taste  by  yellow  flowers  inside  a 
bright  red  bonnet — :bourgeoise  to  the  core.  She 
might  have  never  trod  beyond  the  safe  pavement 
of  some  snug  provincial  town  save  when  once — for 
she  wore  a  bracelet  that  I  felt  sure  was  bought  at 
the  Crystal  Palace — dragged  up  to  London  to  bring 
down  to  admiring  neighbors  her  report  of  its  won- 
ders—  a  comfortable,  jolly,  impassive  face,  which 
listened  with  a  sort  of  patronizing  smile,  I  thought, 
to  the  wonders  of  the  deep,  as  detailed  by  the  sailor. 
I  never  was  more  astonished  in  my  life  than  when, 
in  a  pause  of  the  anecdote — it  was  an  account  of 
some  attack  at  sea — Mrs.  Eed-bonnet  observed  in 
the  quietest  drawl, 

"Yes,  they  thought  the  bursting  o'  that  gun 
would  ha7  killed  him ;  but  I  just  laid  him  down  on 
a  table  in  the  cabin,  and  I  plastered  his  face  all  over 
with  wadding,  and  cut  two  holes  for  his  eyes,  and 
he  got  well  somehow.  There  bean't  no  particular 
scar  left — eh  ?  You  see  ?"  Appealing  to  the  car- 


TRAVELING   COMPANIONS.  157 

riage  generally,  as  a  mild  recognition  of  her  per- 
sonal property  in  the  aforesaid  black  curls  and 
broad  shoulders,  which  nodded  acquiescence. 

"  Ay,  ay — they'd  have  finished  me  more  than 
once  but  for  her  there." 

"  Her"  smiled,  and  in  the  aforesaid  meek  drawl 
continued,  "Yes,  we'd  some  bad  business  in  that 
nigger  trade.  Do  you  remember  the  blackie  that 
was  nigh  killing  you  asleep  in  the  cabin  ?  only  I 
happened  to  come  in,  and  stuck  a  sword  into  him. 
I  helped  to  throw  the  other  three  black  rascals 
overboard ;  I  was  a  strong  woman  then." 

And  the  lazy  blue  eyes  drooped,  and  the  fat 
cheeks  smiled  in  amiable  deprecation,  while  the 
whole  carriage  looked  with  amazed  curiosity  at  this 
middle-aged  matronly  Thalestris  whom  we  had  got 
among  us. 

"  Ay,  ay — my  wife's  right,"  said  the  sea-captain, 
who  thereupon  subsided  a  little,  and  left  his  better 
half  to  give  tongue,  which  she  did  pretty  freely, 
telling  in  that  languid  dolorous  voice  the  most  un- 
accountable stories:  Of  niggers  running  away — 
"  So  I  just  thought  I'd  put  a  musket  to  his  back ;" 
of  niggers  trying  to  assassinate  her  when  her  hus- 
band lay  sick — "  but  I  just  had  a  horsewhip  in  my 
hand,  and  I  gave  it  the  fellow  till  he  howled  for 
mercy :  you  must  get  the  upper  hand  of  these 
blackies,  or  they'll  get  the  upper  hand  of  you ;"  of 
shipwrecks,  disasters,  illness  of  the  captain — "But 


158  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

oh,  bless  you,  the  crew  always  minded  me ;  they 
knew  I  could  command  the  ship  almost  as  well  as 
him."  All  of  which  the  captain  lazily  confirmed 
with  his  gruff  "Ay,  ay;"  he  had  evidently  long 
ceased  to  consider  his  wife  at  all  a  remarkable  per- 
sonage. 

Not  so  her  present  audience.  More  than  one 
smile  arose  of  amused  incredulity,  but  always,  I  no- 
ticed, behind  the  black  head  and  its  curls.  And  fat 
and  rosy  as  the  woman's  face  was,  I  could  trace  a 
certain  cold  hardness  in  the  blue  eyes,  a  squareness 
of  jaw,  and  merciless  rigidity  of  mouth,  which  made 
me  feel  that,  comfortable  as  she  looked,  on  the 
whole,  I  had  rather  not  have  been  one  of  the  "  ras- 
cally niggers"  who  offended  Mrs.  Eed-bonnet. 

Various  turns  her  conversation  took,  from  these 
"  raw  -  head  -  and  -  bloody  -  bones"  anecdotes,  some  of 
which  were  so  cruel  that  for  the  credit  of  woman- 
hood I  had  rather  not  put  them  down,  to  little  epi- 
sodes in  the  domestic  history  of  "  a  poll-parrot, 
whom  I  took  out  of  the  nest,  and  now  he  speaks 
three  languages — I  declare  he  does;  and  for  sense 
and  fondness  he's  just  as  good  as  a  child."  Then, 
in  answer  to  a  question,  with  a  momentary  shadow 
over  the  round  face,  "No,  sir;  we  have  got  no 
children."  Poor  Eed-bonnet!  perhaps  otherwise 
she  would  not  have  "put  a  musket  into  the  back" 
of  an  unlucky  blackamoor,  who  must  once  have 
been  mother's  son  to  somebody. 


TKAVELING  COMPANIONS.  159 

Human  nature  is  weak,  especially  female  nature. 
It  can  resist  an  attack  of  pirates  much  easier  than 
the  petty  vanity  of  telling  the  story  afterward,  with 
every  possible  addition,  for  the  entertainment  of  a 
railway  carriage.  In  ours,  the  masculine  tongue 
stopped  entirely — reposed  on  the  glory  of  adven- 
tures passed  through — or  only  now  and  then  drop- 
ped a  gruff  word,  in  true  man  fashion,  as  if  when  a 
thing  was  once  done  it  was  a  great  "  bother"  after- 
ward to  be  obliged  to  talk  about  it. 

Not  so  the  better  half.  The  captain's  wife  chat- 
tered on  at  the  rate  of  nine  knots  an  hour,  till  the 
three  quiet  dames  in  black,  who  sat  by  me,  began 
to  cast  doubtful  looks  at  one  another,  and  up  to  the 
carriage  roof,  in  the  mild  pharisaical  style  of  thank- 
ful self-gratulation  that  the}'-  were  not  as  some  other 
folk  were.  Even  the  pale  young  clergyman  turned 
his  quiet  head  half  over  the  compartment,  listening 
with  an  air  half  -  shocked,  half  -  compassionate,  to 
these  apocryphal  tales  of  slave-stealing  off  the  Afri- 
can coast,  and  accidental  butcheries  on  the  Chinese 
seas,  told  with  as  much  coolness  as  if  the  offending 
Malays  had  been  Cochin  China  fowls. 

I  had  noticed  the  parson's  head  before.  It  was 
one  of  those  that  you  will  frequently  find  in  En- 
glish country  pulpits — pale,  fair-haired,  with  fea- 
tures so  delicately  cut,  and  woman-like  in  short, 
that  you  instinctively  think,  "  That  man  must  be 
very  like  his  mother."  Yet  there  was  great  firm- 


160  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

ness  in  it — the  sort  of  firmness  you  never  see  but 
in  fair  people — mild,  and  not  aggressive,  yet  capa- 
ble of  resistance  to  the  death.  The  brow,  square 
and  high,  and  made  higher  still  by  a  slight  baldness, 
seemed  to  occupy  two  thirds  of  the  head.  Intel- 
lect, industry,  patience,  perseverance,  even  a  certain 
sweet  kindliness,  were  all  there,  and  something  else, 
which,  alas !  you  too  often  see  in  English  country 
clergymen :  a  narrowness,  a  placid  assertion  of  in- 
fallible right — the  only  possible  right  being  that 
which  the  asserter  holds — a  still,  cold,  univesti ga- 
ting, satisfied  air,  as  if  belief  to  him  had  only  one 
phase,  and  that  was  the  particular  phase  in  which 
its  defender  saw  it.  The  Thirty-nine  Articles  were 
written  in  his  face,  every  thing  beside  them  or  be- 
yond them  being  heretical  or  impossible. 

At  least,  this  was  the  impression  he  gave  me; 
if  a  false  one,  and  the  reverend  unknown  should 
read  this  paper,  I  here  humbly  demand  his  pardon ; 
for  he  was  true  to  his  profession,  which  was  more 
than  I  was,  for  I  confess  to  an  involuntary  smile 
when,  shooting  her  arrow  abroad,  it  might  be  at 
random,  or  it  might  not,  Mrs.  Red-bonnet  thus  broke 
out : 

"  Yes,  it's  all  very  fine  to  talk  about  savages;  for 
my  part,  I  should  like  to  tell  the  people  at  home  a 
bit  of  what  I  know  about  the  missionaries  that  teach 
'em.  Lor7  bless  ye !  I  wouldn't  give  a  penny  to  a 
missionary.  I've  seen  'em  abroad.  They're  all  a 


TRAVELING-  COMPANIONS.  161 

take-in.  They  just  learn  a  few  little  black  boys 
their  letters,  and  then  they  go  up  country  and  enj'y 
themselves.  I  knows  their  ways !  Of  all  the  hum- 
bugs on  earth,  there's  not  a  bigger  humbug  than  a 
missionary." 

More  than  one  pair  of  eyes  glanced  toward  the 
clergyman.  He  sat  motionless,  his  thin  lips  drawn 
almost  into  a  straight  line ;  a  pale  red  came  into 
his  cheek,  and  faded  away  again,  but  he  never  said 
a  word. 

"  Ay,"  added  the  Jersey  captain,  with  a  loud  sea- 
laugh,  innocent  enough,  for  his  back  was  to  the 
clergyman,  whom  I  do  not  suppose  he  had  even 
seen,  "but  the  poor  fellows  mean  no  harm;  it  is 
only  in  the  way  of  business.  One  of  them  said  to 
me,  when  I  asked  of  him  what  he  went  out  for, 
'  Captain,'  says  he,  '  what  do  you  sail  your  ship  for?' 
'Money,'  says  I.  'That's  it,'  says  he;  'so  do  I.' 
And,  by  George,  it's  the  same  with  all  them  poor 
missionary  fellows ;  they  only  do  it  for  the  money." 

The  clergyman  started,  his  brow  was  knitted,  his 
thin  sallow  hands  tightened  on  one  another,  yet  still 
he  kept  silence.  His  soul  evidently  writhed  within 
him  at  these  slanders  cast  on  his  cloth,  but  he  did 
not  speak  a  word.  He  was  not  born  for  a  Martin 
Luther,  a  Eenwick,  a  John  Knox :  he  could  "  keep 
the  faith,"  but  he  could  not  fight  for  it.  He  could 
sit  still,  with  those  blue  eyes  flashing  indignant  fire, 
those  delicate  lips  curled  with  scornful  disgust  at 


162  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

the  coarseness  of  the  attacks  leveled  at  his  creed — 
nay,  at  any  creed,  in  the  presence  of  one  of  its  vow- 
ed professors  ;  but  it  never  occurred  to  him  to  turn 
and  say  a  quiet  word — not  in  defense  of  the  faith, 
for  it  needed  none,  but  in  protestation  against  the 
blind,  ignorant  injustice  which  could  condemn  a 
whole  brotherhood  for  the  folly  or  -wickedness  of 
one.  It  never  seemed  to  cross  his  mind  to  say  to 
these  ignorant  seafaring  people,  of  whom  I  heard  my 
neighbor  whispering,  horrified,  "What  heathens!'7 
that  the  shortcomings  of  a  thousand  priests  are 
powerless  to  desecrate  real  Christianity.  Many  a 
poor  fool  may  close  his  shutters  and  set  up  his  far- 
thing candle,  or  even  hide  himself  through  life  in  a 
cave  of  his  own  burrowing,  but  there  is  daylight  in 
the  world  for  all  that. 

But,  passive  as  he  was,  there  was  something  in 
the  clergyman's  earnest  ascetic  face  which  gave  a 
tacit  condemnation  to  Mrs.  Eed-bonnet.  Gradually 
her  onslaughts  ceased,  for  nobody  seconded  them; 
and  after  the  first,  nobody  even  smiled.  Some- 
thing of  that  involuntary  "  respect  for  the  clergy," 
which  lies  firm  and  safe  at  the  bottom  of  the  Saxon 
heart,  especially  in  the  provinces,  imposed  general 
silence ;  and  the  woman,  who  was  not  a  bad  sort 
of  woman  either,  turned  her  course  of  conversation, 
and  went  on  a  more  legitimate  tack. 

I  did  not  listen  to  it ;  my  mind  was  pondering 
over  the  pale  young  priest,  and  how  strange  it  is 


TRAVELING  COMPANIONS;  163 

that  Truth,  of  itself  so  pure  and  strong — the  very 
strongest  thing  in  the  whole  world — should  often 
be  treated  by  its  professors  as  if  it  were  too  brittle 
to  bear  handling,  too  tender  to  let  the  least  breath 
of  air  blow  upon  it,  too  frail  to  stand  the  smallest 
contamination  from  without.  Good  God !  I  thought, 
if  Christians  would  only  believe  enough  in  their 
own  faith  to  trust  it  to  itself — and  to  Thee ! 

We  reached  the  terminus;  and,  as  usual,  all  the 
fellow-passengers,  like  Macbeth's  witches,  "made 
themselves  air."  Mrs.  Red-bonnet,  the  captain,  the 
clergyman,  myself,  and  the  three  meek  dummies  in 
black,  severally  parted,  in  all  human  probability 
never  to  meet  again  in  this  world.  Peace  go  with 
them !  I  am  their  debtor  for  a  few  harmless  medi- 
tations ;  and  if  they  see  themselves  in  this  article, 
it  will  do  them  no  harm — perhaps  a  little  good. 

I  stopped  at  the  terminus — one  of  the  principal 
English  ports — our  great  southern  sea-gate,  as  it 
were.  The  salt  smell  blew  across  me,  and  the  dim 
tops  of  far-away  masts  rose  over  the  houses,  indi- 
cating the  quay,  which  is  the  grand  rendezvous  of 
partings  and  meetings  between  England  and  her 
colonies — England  and  half  the  known  world. 

Having  to  stay  two  hours,  I  went  into  the  wait- 
ing-room. There,  starting  up  as  I  entered,  was  a 
lady :  I  never  shall  forget  her  face ! 

Young,  though  not  in  first  youth ;  sweet,  so  in- 
expressibly sweet,  that  you  forgot  to  notice  wheth- 


164  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

er  it  was  beautiful ;  nay,  it  shamed  you  from  look- 
ing at  it  at  all,  for  there  were  the  red  swollen  eye- 
lids— the  hot  spots,  one  on  each  cheek,  while  the 
rest  of  the  face,  though  composed,  was  dead  white. 
Its  story  might  be  easily  guessed  at ;  for  this  is,  as 
I  said,  the  great  sea-gate,  the  place  of  meetings  and 
partings — memorable,  year  by  year,  to  hundreds 
and  thousands.  She  was  sitting  at  the  table;  on 
one  side  of  her  lay  a  pocket-book,  and  two  or  three 
letters ;  on  the  other,  open,  the  waiting-room  Bible, 
in  which  she  seemed  to  have  been  reading.  Hast- 
ily she  shut  it,  and  started  up. 

No,  there  was  no  need  for  that.  I  did  the  only 
thing  possible  under  the  circumstances — quitted 
the  room  as  quickly  as  I  came  into  it.  Whether 
I  ever  saw  the  lady  again,  how  much  I  felt,  or  pon- 
dered, or  guessed  of  the  pang  which  only  those 
who  have  endured  can  understand,  I  do  not  intend 
to  say ;  let  it  remain  between  her  and  me :  I  shall 
not  "put  her  in  print."  If  she  chance  to  read  this 
paper,  perhaps  she  will  remember.  I  will  only 
chronicle  this  one  fact,  which  was  to  me  a  curious 
comment  on  "  my  traveling  companions" — on  the 
"  heathen"  captain  and  his  wife,  the  silent,  wrathful, 
clergyman,  the  "humbug"  missionary  and  all- 
how  I  found  her,  with  her  unknown  story  betray- 
ed in  every  line  of  her  poor  face,  sitting  quiet  in 
the  solitary  waiting-room,  with  her  hand  on  the 
open  Bible. 


THROUGH   THE   POWDER-MILLS.  165 


j  tfje  $  crofter-mills. 

"  CHILDREN,  suppose  we  go  to-day  to  see  the 
powder-mills?" 

This  maternal  invitation  was  not  very  warmly 
responded  to.  Some  of  us,  here  safely  buried  out 
of  the  busy  world,  and  greatly  enjoying  our  en- 
tombment, thought  nothing  so  interesting  as  our 
own  old  ruin  where  we  had  nestled  for  the  sum- 
mer, in  company  with  the  owls  and  crows — noth- 
ing so  charming  as  our  woody  braes,  our  sunny 
castle  garden,  our  ever-musical  linn.  The  mere 
mention  of  any  mills — and  powder-mills — pah! 
was  intolerable.  Another  fair  division — of  a  learn- 
ed tendency — suggested  that  powder-mills  had  an 
unpleasant  habit  of  blowing  themselves  up,  especial- 
ly in  the  presence  of  visitors ;  and  life  being  still 
valuable  for  scientific  and  other  purposes,  this  divis- 
ion resolutely  declined  to  go.  A  third  section  of 
our  household — fortunately  indifferent  to  all  exter- 
nal entertainments,  and  willing  to  do  any  thing  or 
go  any  where  under  certain  conditions  and  with 
certain  beloved  accompaniments,  merely  hinted  that 
the  expedition  would  be  "  stupid." 

"  Children,  papa  particularly  wishes  you  to  go.'7 


166  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

Of  course  we  went. 

It  was  a  lovely  day  in  October — a  Scottish  Oc- 
tober— resembling  that  "  Indian  summer"  of  which 
Americans  boast,  and  which  must  be  the  heaven- 
liest  season  of  the  year.  We  set  off — young  men 
and  maidens,  mother  and  bairns — there  is  nothing 
more  pleasant  than  a  country  walk  with  children. 
Forgetting  the  powder-mills,  our  destination,  and 
scorning  all  prognostications  about  the  doubtful- 
ness of  our  return  except  in  a  few  blackened  frag- 
ments, we  gave  ourselves  up  to  the  delight  of  the 
ramble. 

Never  mind,  children,  though  we  slip  at  every 
step  down  the  steep  curved  road,  muddy  with  last 
night's  rain,  and  thickly  sown  with  fallen  leaves. 
One  look  backward  at  our  old  castle,  the  broken 
turret  of  which  stands  out  against  a  sky  of  that 
soft,  pale,  milky  blue  peculiar  to  autumn — clear, 
though  you  feel  at  any  minute  it  may  hide  itself 
under  those  white  fleecy  clouds,  and  darken  into 
settled  rain.  Still,  never  mind — a  brighter  day 
than  this  has  not  blessed  us  through  the  whole 
year,  even  if  it  be  the  last. 

I  love  autumn ;  I  love  every  hour  of  a  day  like 
this,  snatched,  as  it  were,  in  the  very  face  of  win- 
ter, and  reveled  in — no,  not  reveled,  it  is  too  young 
and  foolish  a  word — but  enjoyed,  solemnly  and 
thankfully  enjoyed,  like  a  late-in-life  happiness— 
perhaps  the  truest  and  sacredest  of  all.  I  love  ev- 


THROUGH   THE   POWDER-MILLS.  167 

ery  step  of  a  walk  like  this  —  every  soft  downward 
flitter  of  the  contented  leaves,  that  have  done  their 
summer  work,  and  seem  not  afraid  of  dying.  I 
like  to  stop  every  yard  or  two  to  pull  a  last-re- 
maining flower,  a  stray  bit  of  woodbine,  or  a  red 
crane's-bill  ;  to  notice  the  shimmering  spider-webs, 
covering  every  fern  and  tall  grass-seed  —  easily  dis- 
tinguished, for  on  them  the  dew  lies  all  day  now. 
Plunging  through  this  wood  would  make  us  as  wet 
almost  as  fording  the  river  —  our  own  river,  which 
we  can  hear  running  at  the  foot  of  this  brae.  And 
there,  skirting  along,  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  little 
nooky  valley  where  lies  our  familiar  bleach-field, 
with  the  white  webs  spread  out  in  the  sunshine. 

Emerging  into  a  high  road,  we  still  hear  unseen 
the  sound  of  falling  waters  coming  up  from  the  bot- 
tom of  the  woody  slope. 

"  We  are  safe  to  follow  the  stream  up  to  the  pow- 
der-mills," said  mamma. 

Truly,  this  is  the  very  last  place  where  one  would 
think  of  looking  for  any  sort  of  manufacture,  least 
of  all  that  which  makes  of  "villainous  saltpetre" 
and  other  material  — 


Out  of  the  bowels  of  the  harmless  earth"  — 

the  fearful  combination,  horror  of  many  a  mother, 
from  the  time  when  little  Jack  burns  his  wicked 
wee  fingers  with  a  surreptitious  squib  on  Gunpow- 
der-plot Day,  till  —  God  help  her!  —  she  finds  "my 


168  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

poor  son  John"  in  the  fatal  lists  that  in  their  terri- 
ble brevity  come  home  to  us  from  Sebastopol. 

Sebastopol !  we  can  hardly  believe  there  is  such 
a  place  when  strolling  along  here.  What  a  lovely 
spot!  A  deep  winding  gorge,  cut  cleanly  down 
out  of  the  hilly  country  at  the  bottom  of  which  the 
river  runs — no,  not  runs,  but  skips  and  dances 
swiftly  and  brightly  over  a  bed  of  stones,  some- 
times so  shallow  we  can  almost  cross  it,  sometimes 
settling  into  deep  pools.  It  has  very  high  banks 
thick  with  trees,  or  fringed  with  large  ferns;  now 
and  then  a  rough,  bare,  reddish  rock  crops  out, 
and  makes  little  "bits"  so  exquisite  that  one  would 
not  wonder  to  find  an  artist  and  an  easel  planted 
at  every  hundred  yards.  But  no ;  this  glen  is  out 
of  the  beaten  tracks  of  painters  and  tourists ;  nobody 
minds  it;  it  is  only  "  the  road  to  the  powder-mills." 

So  we  stroll  along,  marveling  at  its  beauty,  its 
delicious  sights  and  sounds,  though  of  the  latter 
there  is  nothing  louder  than  the  lap-lap  of  the  wa- 
ters, or  the  whirr  of  a  wood-pigeon's  wing.  We  do 
not  meet  a  soul,  nor  seem  to  expect  it ;  every  where 
is  spread  a  safe  solitude,  a  golden  Arcadian  calm. 

"The  road  to  the  powder-mills."  We  have  al- 
most forgotten  their  existence.  However,  here,  on 
an  old  stone  gateway  which  might  answer  as  portal 
to  any  thing  in  the  feudal  line,  we  espy  a  notifica- 
tion of  "No  admission  except  on  business."  Of 
course  our  entrance  is  "on  business,"  as  this  must 


THROUGH   THE    POWDER-MILLS.  169 

be  our  destination.  But  we  see  nothing  more  por- 
tentous than  a  decent  cottage,  with  a  border  of 
flowers  and  a  kale-yard  behind,  sloping  riverward. 
At  the  door  stands  a  comely  woman,  with  a  couple 
of  fat,  flaxen-haired  little  ones;  bless  their  little 
hearts !  they  do  not  look  as  if  they  belonged  to  a 
powder-mill.  However,  to  make  sure,  we  ask  the 
question. 

"  Ou  ay,"  briefly  replies  the  woman,  and  points 
our  way  on. 

No  symptoms  whatever  of  any  thing  more  alarm- 
ing than  a  lovely  country  road  skirting  the  river 
which  runs  at  our  left  hand,  while  on  the  right  is  a 
high  bank  all  brambles  and  fern.  As  for  any  sign 
of  human  habitation — yes,  here  is  certainly  a  sort 
of  cottage,  partly  cut  out  of  the  rock,  partly  built 
of  stone,  the  door  and  windows  carefully  fastened 
up,  but  otherwise  nothing  remarkable ;  and  beside 
it,  greatly  to  the  children's  delight,  springs  from  a 
rock  one  of  those  slender  runnels  that  in  summer 
dwindle  to  a  mere  thread.  Led  by  a  rude  wooden 
spout,  it  comes  leaping  down  no  thicker  than  a  girl's 
wrist.  We  rush  to  it,  and  try  hard  to  quench  our 
thirst  out  of  Adam's  goblet — namely,  six  drops 
caught  in  the  palm  of  the  hand — until  one  brilliant 
genius  boldly  stands  under,  and  puts  his  lips  to  the 
tiny  douche,  getting  at  once  his  fill,  not  only  in 
mouth,  but  in  eyes,  nose,  and  shirt -collar.  Then 
the  children  are  seized  with  a  new  fit  of  drouth,  and 
H 


170  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

insist  on  trying  the  same  experiment,  which  results 
in  a  universal  laugh,  and  a  pretty  general  soaking. 

All  this  time,  save  the  woman  and  the  bairns,  we 
had  not  seen  a  living  soul. 

"  Where  shall  we  find  the  powder-mills?"  became 
a  serious  question ;  and  some  of  us  suggested  that 
they  might  have  been  blown  up  over-night,  and  be 
found  nowhere  at  all.  At  last,  to  solve  the  diffi- 
culty, we  beheld,  issuing  from  a  second  low  round 
building,  two — ay,  actually  two  men.  Our  young- 
est shrank  back  behind  her  mamma's  shawl. 

For  oh !  how  grim  to  look  upon  were  these  indi- 
viduals— black-faced,  sooty-handed,  with  an  odd, 
uncertain  frightened  air.  They  eyed  us  in  a  sort 
of  uneasy  curiosity,  as  if  wondering  how  on  earth 
we  had  got  in  there,  but  said  nothing. 

We  passed,  though  at  a  distance  of  some  fifty 
yards,  another  small  round  house,  through  the  half- 
opened  door  of  which  we  discerned  a  heap  of  what 
looked  like  butter-kegs,  soot-blackened.  Hard  by 
stood,  with  equally  sombre  looks,  another  of  these 
Acheroiitic  workmen.  And  then  we  met  a  wagon, 
blackened  all  over ;  it  rolled  slowly  along,  the  green 
boughs  that  overhung  the  road  brushing  its  top, 
which  was  covered  in  as  carefully  as  if  there  had 
been  somebody  dead  inside.  The  wagoner — he 
might  have  been  Pluto's  own — looked  at  our  gay 
laughing  party  with  the  same  air  of  glum  astonish- 
ment, and  passed  us  by. 


THROUGH   THE    POWDER-MILLS.  171 

"I'm  sure  that  cart  is  full  of  gunpowder." 

"  Do  you  think  those  shut-up  houses  can  be  pow- 
der magazines?" 

" I  vow  I  smell  sulphur!" 

And  surely,  in  the  midst  of  this  lovely  glen, 
through  the  murmur  of  the  water,  and  the  fresh 
scent  of  the  dewy  ferns,  we  became  sensible  of  a 
most  Tartarean  odor.  We  had  reached  the  gun- 
powder region  at  last. 

The  green  lane  broke  into  an  open  space,  black- 
ened with  debris  of  unknown  kind ;  the  running 
stream  was  caught  and  diverted  into  various  mys- 
terious channels,  or  led  under  water-wheels  in  dark 
buildings,  of  which  the  doors  seemed  sedulously 
kept  half  closed.  Another  peculiarity  of  these 
buildings  was  that  each  was  placed  separate,  within  a 
considerable  distance  of  the  other.  Between  them, 
a  few  workmen  were  moving  about  with  that  grim 
cautiousness  which  seemed  the  characteristic  of  the 
place.  There  was  none  of  the  careless  jollity  one 
usually  sees  in  a  manufacturing  community  ;  every 
body  seemed  to  go  about  as  if  he  had  something  on 
his  mind. 

A  gentleman  approached.     "  Ladies,  I  think  you 
must  have  mistaken  your  way.     We  never  allow 
strangers  through  our  premises  :  it  would  be  highly ' 
dangerous." 

"  Dangerous!"  and  our  old  horrors  revived. 

"  Yes,  rnadam,"  continued  the  owner,  after  he  had 


172  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

been  informed  who  we  were,  and  our  passport  to 
his  domains.  ''You  see,  the  most  trivial  careless- 
ness, a  spark  from  a  cigar,  the  friction  of  a  shoe-nail 
against  the  floor  might  blow  up  any  one  of  our  mag- 
azines or  work-shops — one,  or  even  more ;  though, 
as  you  may  have  noticed,  we  place  them  as  far 
asunder  as  we  can,  for  fear  of  accident." 

"Do  accidents  often  occur?"  we  asked,  in  some 
trepidation. 

"  Fewer  of  late  years ;  but  when  they  do  they  are 
rather  serious.  My  house  there" — and  the  old  gen- 
tleman, who,  from  his  comfortable  and  benign  coun- 
tenance and  manner,  might  have  spent  his  days  in 
growing  innocent  wheat  instead  of  fabricating  gun- 
powder, pointed  to  a  handsome  abode  on  the  top  of 
the  hill — "  my  house  there  had  once  the  roof  torn 
off,  and  the  drawing-room  windows  blown  in  with 
an  explosion,  so  it  behooves  us  to  take  precautions." 

"  Perhaps  it  were  better  not  to  go,"  hesitated 
some  of  us,  and  wished  ourselves  well  out  of  this 
den  of  danger. 

"  No  fear,"  smiled  the  mill-owner.  "  If  you  will 
follow  my  son,  and  go  only  where  he  tells  you,  you 
will  come  to  no  harm." 

We  obeyed;  not  without  qualms,  which,  howev- 
er, gradually  vanished  under  the  gentlemanly  kind- 
ness and  intelligence  of  our  guide. 

Now  this  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  scientific  "ar- 
ticle." Any  one  who  wishes  to  know  how  gun- 


THROUGH   THE    POWDER-MILLS.  173 

powder  is  made  must  just  look  out  the  letter  G  in 
the  nearest  cyclopaedia;  for,  in  spite  of  "my  son's" 
courteous  arid  lucid  explanations  as  we  went 
through  the  mills,  I  have  at  this  minute  the  very 
vaguest  ideas  on  the  subject.  I  know  we  went  up 
and  down  for  about  half  a  mile  along  the  river-side, 
poked  our  heads  tremblingly  into  various  dark 
buildings,  in  one  of  which  was  a  gigantic  water- 
wheel,  grinding  incessantly  at  what  was  said  to  be 
gunpowder,  and  in  which  the  intrusion  of  a  few 
grains  of  some  foreign  body  would  blow  up  the 
•whole  concern,  and  scatter  destruction  in  all  direc- 
tions. I  know  we  crossed  the  stream  on  a  foot- 
bridge, and  for  a  few  moments  paused  there  to  look 
up  at  a  perpendicular  rock,  chiefly  composed  of  red 
sandstone.  It  was  about  100  feet  high,  crowned  by 
a  natural  turret,  round  which  clustered  bushes  of 
green  broom,  pendent  bramble- wreaths,  and  boughs 
of  yellow  birk — a  view  picturesque  enough  to  be 
made  use  of,  and  exhibited  (like  our  neighboring 
show-castle)  at  sixpence  per  head,  but  which  here 
abides  unnoticed  and  tourist-free,  being  only  "  the 
powder-mills," 

I  know,  likewise,  that  we  might  have  gained  an 
infinite  deal  of  useful  information  had  not  our  minds 
been  sorely  distracted  by  the  natural  propensity  of 
the  younger  generation  to  stand  on  the  edge  of  deep 
water-tanks ;  to  persist  in  penetrating  into  murky 
houses,  whence  issued  sulphurous  stenches ;  to  show 


174  STUDIES  FKOM    LIFE. 

a  fatal  inclination  to  take  and  handle  hot  saltpetre 
crystals — in  fact,  to  do  any  thing  they  ought  not  to 
do,  and  nothing  that  they  ought — a  peculiarity  not, 
on  the  whole,  objectionable,  since  a  child  is  good 
for  little  without  a  certain  degree  of  intelligent  in- 
quisitiveness. 

Well,  we  ran  the  gauntlet  of  the  whole  machin- 
ery, and  no  ill  came  to  any  body.  We  saw  the 
grinding,  drying,  and  mixing  of  those  ingredients, 
harmless  enough  apart,  which  make  up  the  great 
destructive  agent — the  most  cursed  invention  of  the 
human  race.  We  saw  it  packed  in  those  innocent- 
looking  kegs,  and  lying  safe  and  peaceful  in  those 
little  stone-houses,  over  which  beech-trees  shook 
their  leaves,  and  fern  and  brambles  grew,  until  it 
should  be  transferred  thence  to  work  abroad  its 
errand  of  death. 

u  We  have  sent  a  great  deal  to  the  Turkish  gov- 
ernment, for  the  Crimea,"  was  the  answer  to  a  very 
natural  question  on  our  part.  "  Indeed,  we  send  it 
from  these  mills  to  every  quarter  of  the  world.'7 

Heaven  help  the  world !  There  was  something 
sickening  in  the  idea  how,  in  these  terrible  war- 
times, a  human  life  might  hang,  as  it  were,  upon 
every  ounce  of  the  fatal  substance  that  lay  so  snug 
in  this  quiet  glen ;  how  we  had  close  at  our  hand 
what  may  ere  long  be  destined  to  level  a  city,  de- 
stroy a  fleet,  or  slaughter  an  army.  And  yet  the 
river  went  singing  on,  and  the  boughs  waved,  and 


THROUGH  THE   POWDER-MILLS.  175 

the  bees  buzzed  about  in  the  sunshine,  and  all  the 
beautiful  world  of  nature  lived  its  innocent  uncon- 
scious life,  each  in  its  own  way.  It  was  an  awful 
thought — a  thought  which  nothing  could  ease,  save 
a  belief  in  over-ruling  Omnipotence,  and  in  that 
manifestation  of  it  which  makes  it  to  us  likewise 
All-wisdom  and  All-love. 

We  ended  our  inspection  of  the  powder-mills, 
being,  if  not  practically  wiser  concerning  them,  at 
all  events,  considerably  the  better  for  many  new 
and  serious  thoughts.  Quitting  our  kind  guide, 
who  had  brought  us  to  the  entrance,  we  again  re- 
traced our  way  to  the  farther  end  of  the  glen.  The 
works  altogether  extended,  we  were  told,  for  more 
than  a  mile  along  the  river-side.  Eepassing  the 
various  places,  but  keeping  at  a  safe  distance,  and 
standing  most  respectfully  aside  whenever  we  met 
one  of  the  funeral-looking  powder-wagons  with  its 
grim  wagoner — I  declare  solemnly  we  did  not  meet 
a  single  workman  who  wore  a  smile  upon  his  face ! 
— we  came  at  last  to  the  utmost  boundary  of  the 
mills. 

I  think  more  than  one  of  us  breathed  freer,  and 
took  a  brighter  and  cheerier  view  of  the  outside 
world,  when  we  had  got  fairly  out  of  sight  and  smell 
of  Friar  Bacon's  atrocious  condiments — admirable 
cookery  for  the  feast  of  death ;  and,  walking  along 
past  a  cottage  and  a  byre,  where  stood  a  sturdy 
farmer-lad  with  his  team,  and  a  lassie  with  a  bucket 


176  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

— both  good  specimens  of  that  bright,  honest,  intel- 
ligent cast  of  face  which  one  continually  meets  with 
in  the  pastoral  districts  of  Scotland — we  came,  by 
a  sudden  twist  in  the  road,  upon  a  "bonnie  sight." 

On  a  bare  knoll,  round  which  the  stream  curved, 
clustered  about  in  all  directions,  down  even  to  the 
shiny  shallows  of  the  water,  lay  a  flock  of  sheep — 
the  whitest,  the  fattest,  the  meekest,  the  happiest- 
looking  sheep ;  not  in  scores  merely,  but  in  hund- 
reds, basking  in  the  sun,  chewing  the  cud  en  masse, 
and  at  the  sound  of  footsteps  just  turning  round 
their  innocent  mild  faces,  but  scarcely  a  single  one 
stirred.  They  were  not  afraid — why  need  they  be  ? 
They  looked  as  if  not  a  thought  of  harm  or  evil 
had  ever  troubled  their  lives.  A  little  way  off 
were  the  two  shepherds — one  lolling  on  the  ground, 
the  other  standing  smoking  his  pipe,  and  at  their 
feet  the  collies  dozed  in  peace.. 

We  began  talking  to  one  of  the  shepherds — a 
brown-faced  old  fellow,  with  a  keen  honest  eye  and 
shaggy  brows.  Nothing  loth,  he  came  and  leaned 
against  the  little  wooden  bridge  where  we  were  sit- 
ting, and  listened  with  a  gratified  smile  to  our  warm 
admiration  of  his  charge. 

"  They're  no  bad,"  was  all  he  answered. 

We  asked  where  they  came  from. 

"  Frae  Skye,  and  going  to  Galashiels." 

"You  are  a  Highlandman?" 

"Ay,  but  no  o7  Skye;  I  come  frae  Loch " 


THROUGH  THE   POWDER-MILLS.  177 

(I  missed  the  word)  "by  Inverness" — as,  indeed, 
one  might  almost  have  guessed  by  his  very  pure 
accent. 

"  It  is  a  fine  country  about  Inverness." 

"  7Tis  that  indeed ;  and  mony  guid  sheep  there- 
abouts too.  But  these  come  frae  Skye,"  he  repeat- 
ed, looking  down  at  his  fleecy  friends. 

"Did  you  bring  them  all  the  way?  and  how 
long  have  you  been  on  the  road  ?" 

"  Just" — he  paused  to  ponder — "just  thirty -four 
days." 

"And  how  many  are  there  in  the  flock?" 

"Five  hundred  and  forty." 

To  bring  540  sheep  a  month's  journey  across  the 
country  seemed  no  easy  undertaking.  "And  how 
many  miles  a  day  do  you  get  over?" 

"About  ten,  or  rnaybe  twal — nae  mair:  they're 
tender  beasts,  ye  ken." 

"  And  what  do  you  do  at  night?" 

"  Watch." 

"Isn't  it  very  cold  lying  out  of  nights  now?" 

The  old  shepherd  shrugged  his  shoulders,  but 
said  sturdily,  "Ou,  no." 

"  Where  did  you  .lie  last  night?" 

"  Out  on  the  back  o'  the  Pentlands." 

They  looked  bright  and  sunshiny  enough  now, 
these  fairest  of  all  the  Lowland  hills,  but  last  night 
I  remembered  we  could  not  see  them  for  mist  and 
rain. 

H2 


178  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

"  Come,  Wullie,  we  maun  awa',"  said  our  friend 
to  his  companion,  after  standing  a  few  minutes 
more  silently  leaning  over  the  bridge,  with  his 
bonnet  pulled  over  his  eyes. 

The  lad  sprang  up,  likewise  the  collies.  Soon 
the  sheep  were  roused  into  a  general  commotion, 
and,  divided  into  two  flocks,  slowly  began  to  move 
away.  Our  shepherd  waited  for  the  first  detach- 
ment to  clear  off;  then,  summoning  his  flock  and 
his  dog  in  some  incomprehensible  Gaelic,  drew  his 
plaid  over  his  shoulder  and  prepared  to  follow. 

"  Is  that  plaid  all  you  have  to  hap  you  when  you 
lie  out  of  nights?"  I  asked,  as  we  bade  him  good- 

by. 

"  Ou,  ay.  It's  wearin'  auld  like  myself  but  it's 
no  that  ill,  and  it'll  last  out  my  time.  Guid-day, 
leddies — guid-day." 

And  so,  wrapping  it  round  him,  the  old  shepherd 
went  after  his  flock. 

"  Surely  they  are  not  going  through  the  powder- 
mills!" 

No,  no.  We  saw  them,  a  few  minutes  after, 
winding  leisurely  up  the  brae  that  led  into  the  flat 
country — the  country  of  corn-fields  and  pasture- 
lands.  We  caught  the  last  glimmer  of  the  white 
moving  mass  as  it  disappeared  under  the  trees ;  we 
heard,  fainter  and  fainter,  the  sharp  barking  of  the 
dogs;  and  then  we  were  sitting  alone  on  the  small 
bridge,  listening  to  the  running  of  the  river,  and 


THROUGH  THE   POWDER-MILLS.  179 

looking  out  lazily  upon  the  sunny  curves  of  the 
Pentlands  far  away. 

"  I  wonder,"  whispered  one  of  us,  "  whether  there 
will  ever  come  a  time  when  there  shall  be  required 
no  such  thing  in  the  world  as  gunpowder  mills  I" 


180  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


Brother  Ionatljan'0 

WHO,  living  within  reach  of  that  big  town,  the 
inhabitants  of  which  you  may  hear  speaking  con- 
descendingly of  London  as  "  our  southern  metropo- 
lis," does  not  know  the  long  low  line  of  the  Mersey 
shore,  ending,  or  rather  beginning,  in  the  intermin- 
able sandy  flats  of  Waterloo  ? — Waterloo,  called  by 
courtesy  a  sea-bathing  place;  and  so  it  might  be  for 
a  Liliputian  population  which  did  not  object  to  salt 
water,  or  to  scudding  one  mile  across  wet  sands  to 
get  to  it,  and  another  to  get  overhead  in  it.  For 
all  that,  it  is  not  a  bad  place  nor  an  ugly  place,  and 
pleasant  to  run  down  to  by  rail  for  "  a  smell  of  the 
sea,"  half  a  mile  off.  If  by  rare  chance  you  happen 
to  catch  the  tide  at  high-water,  as  I  did  the  other 
day,  and,  for  a  few  minutes,  the  leagues  of  sand  be- 
come sea,  and  the  sea  becomes  a  flood  of  silver,  and 
gold,  and  diamonds  under  the  paly  sunshine  of  a 
December  afternoon,  why,  then,  Waterloo  is  not  far 
from  being  actually  pretty. 

Ay,  even  to  an  eye  that  hates  flatness  as  it  hates 
— what  you  please,  and  would  object  to  living  in 
Paradise  unless  assured  that  it  was  not  a  level  coun- 
try. But,  viewed  with  a  pardoning  pity,  there  is 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  181 

something  tolerable,  and  even  interesting,  in  the 
determined  flatness  of  this  region — its  leagues  upon 
leagues  of  satisfied  monotony — sea,  sky,  sand-hills 
— sand-hills,  sea,  and  sky,  in  everlasting  repetition  ; 
no  foreground,  no  distance,  no  horizon,  making  you 
feel  something  like  the  frog  in  the  fairy  tale — "  he 
gaed  on,  and  he  gaed  on,  and  he  gaed  on,  till  he 
cam  to  the  well  o'  the  warld's  end."  You  have  a 
conviction  that  you  might  find  the  "well  o'  the 
warld's  end"  somewhere  beyond — if  there  be  a  be- 
yond to  them — the  sand-hills  of  Waterloo. 

One  variety  it  has,  something  alive  and  stirring 
on  the  great  expanse  of  uniformity — the  ships. 
Generally  there  is  a  dreary  look  about  ships  out  at 
sea ;  not  passing  and  repassing  busily,  as  at  or  near 
a  sea-port  town,  but  peered  at  telescopically  from 
an  idle  shore.  They  glide  so  ghostly,  silently,  soli- 
tarily, like  unquiet  souls  adrift  upon  space — un- 
known dots  upon  the  unknown  sea,  watched  for  a 
little  and  speculated  upon,  then  dropping  down 
over  the  horizon,  and  vanishing  you  know  not 
where. 

But  at  Waterloo  the  ships  are  not  spectres.  You 
have  there,  softened  into  picturesque  form,  the  full 
benefit  of  the  Mersey  commerce,  the  "  flocks"  of 
sailing-vessels  outward  or  homeward  bound,  the 
long  fairy -like  threads  of  smoke  cast  across  the  ho- 
rizon by  innumerable  passenger  steam-boats ;  and 
when  some  fine  "liner"  passes  up  or  down  Chan- 


182  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

nel,  she  sometimes  comes  near  enough  for  you  to 
hear  the  distant  whir- whir  of  her  machinery  above 
the  almost  equally  distant  murmur  of  the  sea;  you 
watch  her  great  bulk  as  contrasted  with  all  other 
steamers,  wonder  what  she  is,  and  where  on  earth 
she  is  going  to. 

I  thus  stood  watching  a  big  steamer  making  her 
way — not  ghostily,  but  very  noisily,  like  a  stylish 
lady  marching  majestically  on,  in  considerable  hur- 
ry, but  having  no  small  opinion  of  herself — up  the 
river  toward  Liverpool.  With  her  long  high  hulk 
far  out  of  the  water,  her  enormous  paddle-wheels, 
and  her  low  masts  all  dressed  with  flags,  she  made 
a  sufficiently  prominent  object  between  me  and  the 
sun  to  catch  the  notice  even  of  a  lazy  landlubber, 
to  whose  unpracticed  eye  every  thing  from  a  lighter 
to  a  man-of-war  was  a  "  ship,"  and  nothing  more. 

And  so,  when  finally  she  steamed  out  of  sight 
into  that  misty  forest  of  masts  to  which  the  Mersey 
narrows  above  Bootle,  and  I  had  taken  my  saunter 
over  the  sand-hills,  the  big  steamer  still  lingered 
sufficiently  in  my  mind  for  me  to  make  a  careless 
remark  concerning  her  when  I  reached  home.  At- 
tention was  roused  immediately. 

"  A  'big'  steamer?  Very  big,  was  she?  Pad- 
dles or  screw  ?" 

After  a  great  effort  of  nautical  memory,  I  replied 
decisively,  "  Paddles.77 

"  Long  hulk  ?     High  out  of  water  ?77 


183 

u  Very  high — in  fact,  with  her  low  masts,  I  might 
almost  say  clumsy.'7 

"  Clumsy  !  Ah  !  you  know  nothing.  Why,  she 
was  the  Adriatic.  You  must  actually  have  seen  the 
Adriatic  /" 

I  humbly  suggested  that  this  fact,  apparently  so 
overwhelming,  and  implying  so  great  a  privilege, 
did  not  impart  any  information  to  my  benighted 
self;  that  except  certain  vague  reminiscences  of 
the  Doge  of  Venice,  combined  with  that  ever-memo- 
rable riddle  of,  "  What  sea  would  you  choose  for 
your  bedchamber?"  the  Adriatic  conveyed  to  me 
no  definite  idea  except  a  ship's  name. 

"  Not  know  the  Adriatic,  the  great  American  liner, 
built  to  sail  against  our  Persia — hitherto  the  biggest 
steamer  afloat  except  the  Leviathan.'1'1  ("  Which 
isn't  afloat  yet,"  I  suggested,  "  and  never  may  be.") 
"  Why,  the  Adriatic  is  Brother  Jonathan's  last  pet; 
meant  to  beat  us  all  hollow — got  up  regardless  of 
expense — furnished  like  a  palace.  And  her  engines 
— they  boast  that  her  engines  are  the  grandest  ever 
manufactured :  I'd  like  to  have  a  look  at  them!" 

Here  the  professional  mind  became  absorbed,  at 
times  giving  vent  to  its  ecstatic  meditations  thus: 

"  Only  think,  2800  horse-power — so  I've  heard. 
What  cylinders !  what  boilers  !  Oh,  to  see  her  pad- 
dles working!"  (I  hinted  I  had  heard  them,  and 
they  made  a  tolerable  noise.)  "  Of  course  they  did. 
What  a  sight  she  must  have  been  coming  up  the 


184  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

river!  I  wish  I  had  had  the  sense  to  run  down 
to  the  landing-stage:  it  was  crammed  with  people 
watching  her.  She  has  been  expected  ever  since 
spring,  and  this  is  her  first  voyage.  You  are  sure 
you  saw  her?" 

"  Yes;"  and  I  began  to  plume  myself  on  the  fact 
accordingly. 

"  She  hasn't  beat  us  yet,  though ;  she  was  a  day 
or  two  overdue — perhaps  her  engines  were  too  new 
to  work.  She  and  the  Persia  will  have  a  nice  race 
for  it  back  again,  for  they  both  sail  for  New  York 
next  week.  Won't  the  captains  clap  on  steam  and 
go  ahead,  rather!  I  wonder  which  will  beat!  I 
hope,  not  the  Yankee." 

Here  the  British  mind  became  excited  and  enthu- 
siastic. It  certainly  was  exciting  to  think  of  this 
racing  on  a  grand  scale,  with  iron  steeds  of  from 
2000  to  3000  horse-power,  and  the  race-course  the 
wide  Atlantic.  As  for  the  stakes — a  few  hundred 
lives,  more  or  less,  to  say  nothing  of  money  and 
property — these  seemed  supernumerary  trifles. 

"  I  should  like  to  go  aboard  of  her,  and  get  a  look 
at  her  engines,"  was  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the 
next  day  or  two,  till  it  came  at  last — triumphant 
possibility! — to,  "Should  you  like  to  go  aboard  of 
her?" 

Could  a  British  woman  resist  such  an  invitation 
domestic,  following  that  of  the  Yankee  captain  to  an 
enlightened  British  public?  which  an  enlightened 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  185 

British  public  had  taken  advantage  of,  and,  in  the 
most  amiable  manner,  had  gone  by  thousands  in 
river-steamers  and  rowing-boats,  and  all  sorts  of 
crafts,  to  examine  our  beautiful  enemy  as  she  lay 
off  Eock  Ferry,  alongside  her  rival  the  Persia,  dur- 
ing two  December  days. 

You  would  not  have  thought  it  was  December, 
though,  as  we  paced  up  and  down  the  landing- 
stages,  that  great  trysting- place,  whence,  as  has 
been  proved  from  accurate  data,  40,000  people  cross 
the  Mersey  every  day,  and  the  whole  population  of 
Liverpool  crosses  in  the  course  of  a  week.  The 
new  landing-stage,  especially,  forms  an  admirable 
promenade  of  a  thousand  yards  long,  with  one  tri- 
fling objection — the  bridges  which  connect  it  with 
the  quay  are  so  short,  that  at  low-water  they  slope 
in  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees,  down  which  an 
adventurous  truck  sometimes  darts  to  every  body's 
imminent  danger.  Once  a  commercial  traveler's 
gig,  in  going  to  be  put  on  board  some  steamer,  per- 
formed that  feat  with  such  an  impetus  that  it  dashed 
right  across  the  landing-stage,  and  popped  into  the 
river,  whence  it  had  to  be  fished  out  again,  some  wit 
recommending  the  owner  "  to  bait  with  a  horse." 

To  -  day,  being  nearly  high  -  water,  no  such  acci- 
dent diverted  the  incessantly  changing  swarm  of 
all  sorts  of  people  which  makes  a  Liverpool  crowd 
a  perpetual  study — landsmen  and  seamen,  big  coun- 
try farmers,  men  on  'Change,  thin  wiry  Yankees, 


186  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

semi-gentlemanly  bearded  Jews,  foreign  sailors  and 
sea-captains,  with  olive  faces  and  gold  ear-rings; 
wTomen,  too,  of  all  sorts — from  the  handsome,  over- 
dressed "Lancashire  witches,"  to  the  grimy  old 
Irishwoman,  a  pipe  in  her  mouth,  and  a  load  of 
herrings  on  her  head,  perfuming  her  whole  route  as 
she  passes.  A  selection  from  these  filled  the  Eock 
Ferry-boat  as  we  slowly  steamed  away  up  the  river 
to  the  immortal  tune  of — may  our  transatlantic 
brethren  appreciate  the  compliment !  — Bobbing 
around — around. 

It  was  an  exquisite  afternoon — full  of  that  quiet, 
all-permeating  sunshine  which,  when  you  do  get 
it,  makes  a  December  day  the  pleasantest  of  any 
for  sight-seeing,  The  air  was  so  clear  you  could 
have  counted  every  window  in  the  houses  along 
either  shore;  and  the  vessels,  as  we  passed  them 
by,  seemed  to  stand  up  spar  by  spar,  and  rope  by 
rope,  cut  out  sharply  against  the  cloudless  sky. 
They  seemed  to  rne  all  alike ;  but  some  of  our  party 
talked  learnedly  of  "  schooner-rigged,"  "  brig-rig- 
ged," " clippers,"  etc.;  had  apparently  a  personal 
acquaintance  with  every  ship  on  the  river;  fought 
energetically  over  the  sailing  merits  of  the  James 
Baines  and  the  Maggie  something  or  other — and 
which  had  been  the  shortest  passage  ever  made  be- 
tween here  and  Australia.  They  pointed  out,  a 
short  distance  astern,  a  vessel — small  enough  she 
seemed — with  her  decks  crowded,  and  lines  of  cab- 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  187 

bages  hanging  to  "her  lower  rigging,  being  towed 
out  by  one  of  those  sturdy  little  steam-tugs. 

"  She's  an  emigrant-ship,  bound  for  Australia." 

"  They'll  be  singing  Cheer,  Boys,  Cheer"  said  one 
who  knew  all  about  it,  "  at  least  for  the  first  hour  or 
two.  Poor  fellows!  they'll  need  to  sing  it  pretty 
often  between  Liverpool  and  Melbourne." 

And  just  then  the  echo  of  a  faint  dreary  "  Hur- 
rah !"  came  over  the  water,  as  if  the  emigrants  were 
toying  hard  to  bid  any  body  and  every  body  a  jolly 
good-by,  and  start  with  a  good  grace  for  the  "new 
<md  happy  land." 

Of  course,  the  earth  must  be  covered  and  civil- 
ized ;  and  those  who  find  Europe  too  full  to  hold 
them  are  right  to  go  forth  into  a  new  land,  to  re- 
plenish and  subdue  it;  but  to  any  with  strong 
home -instincts,  who  feel  that  if  native  land  held 
not  a  tie  they  should  still  cling  to  the  mere  sod — to 
these  an  emigrant-ship  is  one  of  the  very  saddest 
sights  in  the  whole  world — sadder  even  than  one 
which  met  us  shortly — a  boat  pulled  by  ten  boys 
in  regulation  nautical  costume. 

"  Ah !  that's  the  Akbar's  boat,  and  there  she  is 
lying  just  off  the  quarantine  station.  Look  at  those 
lads,  now ;  how  cheerily  they  pull,  and  what  nice 
faces  they  have!  You  would  never  think  they 
were  all  criminals." 

No,  certainly  not — round,  rosy,  honest,  happy 
faces  as  ever  I  beheld.  And  yet  these  were,  every 


188  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

one  of  them  belonging  to  what  is  called  "the  crim- 
inal class" — vagabonds,  if  not  thieves,  who,  coming 
under  the  lash  of  the  law,  had  been  sent,  not  to 
prison,  where  reformation  would  have  been  hope- 
less, but  to  this  marine  reformatory,  where  they  are 
kept  in  safe  custody,  educated,  taught  a  trade,  or 
made  sailors  of.  I  do  not  know  enough  of  this  re- 
formatory to  write  about  it,  but  I  know  the  sight 
of  these  ten  appled-faced  lads,  pulling  away  merrily 
through  the  saltwater  instead  of  skulking  in  a  jail- 
yard — of  the  Akbar,  rocking  lazily,  with  long,  in- 
definite lines  of  boys'  shirts  flapping  over  her  clean 
decks  and  ornamenting  her  useless  rigging,  instead 
of  the  stern  stone  walls  of  your  model  prison  or 
penitentiary,  is  a  remembrance  hopeful  and  pleas- 
ant to  any  one  who  thinks  at  all  of  that  great  ques- 
tion, to  which  no  legislation  has  yet  found  an  an- 
swer: "  What  shall  we  do  with  our  criminal  class- 
es?" 

And  now  we  came  in  sight  of  "  Jonathan's  Pet" 
— that  is,  we  had  been  in  sight  for  ever  so  long,  but 
my  inexperienced  eye  had  never  detected  her,  or 
distinguished  her  from  half  a  dozen  other  "big 
ships." 

"  Don't  you  see  her  ?  lying  beside  that  old- 
fashioned,  clumsy -built  trader — wonderful  craft! 
Would  do  actually  sixteen  knots  in  sixteen  hours ! 
ha !  ha !" — and  modern  superiority  laughed  heartily 
at  the  respectable  "  slow  coach"  which  no  doubt  was 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  189 

thought  an  astonishing  ship  in  her  day.  "  That's 
the  Persia  to  leeward,  and  there's  the  Adriatic. 
How  small  she  looks !" 

This  certainly  was  the  first  impression  she  gave. 
To  hear  afterward  of  her  real  proportions — 354  feet 
in  length,  32  feet  broad,  and  50  feet  in  depth,  seem- 
ed perfectly  ridiculous.  No  doubt  it  is  her  exqui- 
site symmetry  that  takes  from  the  sense  of  size,  and 
makes  her  huge  bulk  look  as  graceful  as  a  yacht. 
Seen  foreshortened,  sitting  on  the  water  as  lightly, 
as  airily  as  a  swan  on  a  stream,  the  slight  clumsi- 
ness of  build  which  struck  me  when  I  saw  her  lon- 
gitudinally, steaming  up  the  river,  was  not  visible 
at  all. 

There  are  few  things  of  man's  handiwork  more 
beautiful  than  'a  ship  afloat — even  a  steamer;  and 
probably  the  Adriatic  is  one  of  the  finest  specimens 
of  ship-building  extant.  The  eye  revels  in  her  har- 
monious curves;  not  a  line  from  stem  to  stern  in 
which  Hogarth's  "  line  of  beauty  and  grace"  does 
not  soothe  and  fascinate  one's  sense  of  form.  She 
is  said  to  have  been  built  after  quite  a  new  model, 
of  which  the  only  other  specimen  is  the  United 
States  steam-frigate  Niagara — her  shape  being  stu- 
diously adapted  to  the  course  of  the  water  when 
cleft  by  the  ship's  prow.  Her  chief  peculiarity  is 
the  exceeding  delicacy  with  which  she  tapers  up  to 
this  prow,  which,  from  her  very  small  bowsprit,  ap- 
pears almost  like  a  sharp  point.  As  one  of  our 


190  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

party  said,  uSlie  looks  as  if  after  every  voyage  she 
would  have  to  sharpen  her  nose  upon  a  grindstone." 
When  we  neared  her,  and  noticed  how  high  she 
stood  out  of  the  water,  how  the  boat-loads  of  peo- 
ple that  kept  crowding  in  seemed  to  be  dispersed 
over  her  decks  of  no  more  account  than  a  stray 
half-dozen  or  so,  the  impression  of  her  size  in- 
creased. As  our  boat  lay  to,  waiting  to  come  along- 
side, the  learned  of  our  company  had  opportunity 
fully  to  criticise  the  points  of  Jonathan's  Pet,  which 
they  did  with  great  gusto.  I,  unlearned  and  igno- 
rant, could  only  gaze  idly  at  a  sociable  party  of  sea- 
gulls, which  swam  from  under  her  bows,  apparently 
as  tame  and  comfortable  as  a  brood  of  ducks  in  a 
pond,  and  then  at  this  gigantic  floating  palace,  which 
had  just  made  safely  her  first  voyage.  Her  first 
voyage !  As  an  ancient  poet  observes, 

"We  cherish  all  our  firsts  throughout  our  lives." 

But  Captain  James  West — can  it  be  he  leaning  over 
the  side,  and  giving  polite  orders  that  the  ship's 
ladder  may  be  made  as  easy  as  possible  for  the  as- 
cent of  ladies  who  have  not  been  accustomed  to 
mount  what  looks  like  a  fire-escape  attached  to  a 
third-floor  window — Captain  James  West  must  feel 
truly  thankful  when  he  thinks  of  the  Adriatic's  first 
voyage  successfully  over.  The  first  of  how  many  ? 
Heaven  only  knows. 

We  were  on  board  at  last.     Most  people,  in  these 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  191 

traveling  clays,  are  familiar  with  the  interior  of  the 
magnificent  ocean-steamers,  where  every  luxury  of 
furniture,  living  and  sleeping  accommodation,  is 
provided  for  a  fortunate  passenger,  subject  only 
to  the  slight  drawbacks  of  sea-sickness,  drowning, 
burning,  or  blowing  up.  Those  splendid  cabins,  all 
velvet  and  mirrors,  where  you  might  have  every 
opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted  with  your  own 
personal  appearance  between  here  and  America — 
those  dainty,  tiny  bed-chambers,  so  well  lighted  and 
ventilated — those  long  dinner-tables — and  the  stew- 
ard's pantry,  where  an  intelligent  but  thin  Yankee 
stands,  with  an  air  half  civil  and  half  condescend- 
ing— "  You  may  walk  in,  ladies ;"  and  watches  with 
a  grand  indifference  our  admiration  of  the  beautiful 
"crockery"  and  crystal,  packed  so  ingeniously  that 
one  imagines  the  fiercest  hurricane  of  the  Atlantic 
could  not  crack  a  single  wine-glass.  Truly  a  voy- 
age in  the  Adriatic  would  be  exceedingly  pleasant 
if  all  things  were  warranted — weather  included — to 
be  always  as  they  appear  when  she  lies  in  the  Mer- 
sey Eiver. 

But — her  engines.  The  scientific  mind  evidently 
thought  every  minute  lost  that  was  not  spent  in 
the  examination  of  her  engines.  So  we  hurriedly 
ran  through  the  passenger  domains,  first  and  second 
class — the  second-class  berths  and  cabins  being,  by 
the  way,  uncommonly  comfortable — brushed  past 
the  stewardess,  whom,  immersed  in  a  pile  of  haber- 


192  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

dashery,  we  overheard  giving  a  rnild  order  for  "  four 
hundred  and  sixty  pair  of  blankets!" — paced  rap- 
idly from  end  to  end  of  the  upper  or  spar  deck — 
peered  down  into  the  hold — an  awful  cavern,  fifty 
feet  in  depth — and  finally  made  our  way  to  the 
engine-gallery. 

Perhaps,  of  all  human  handiwork,  there  is  noth- 
ing grander  than  a  fine  piece  of  machinery,  especial- 
ly a  steam-engine.  I  own  to  have  been  literally 
awed  at  sight  of  this  one — this  dumb  monster  of 
shiny  brass  and  dark  solid  iron,  with  its  enormous 
cylinders  moulded  as  accurately  as  a  silver  flower- 
bell  ornamenting  a  tea-pot,  and  kept  as  bright  as 
the  best  housewife's  best  "  family  -plate  ;"  with  its 
crank — after  looking  at  which,  as  some  one  said, 
the  adjective  "  cranky"  appeared  an  extraordinary 
misuse  of  words — and  its  piston-rod,  that,  moving 
up  and  down,  must  look  as  terrible,  remorseless, 
and  unswerving  as  the  great  arm  of  justice. 

"  Oh,  to  see  it  working !"  was  the  sigh  of  enthusi- 
astic professional  appreciation :  "  with  those  eight 
boilers,  and  those  forty-eight  furnaces,  and  all  that 
mass  of  machinery !  "Working — working  night  and 
day  like  a  blind  giant,  who  doesn't  know  what  he 
is,  or  why  he  is,  or  where  he  is  going,  but  just  goes 
laboring  on,  till  something  or  some  one  brings  him 
to  a  dead  stop.  Really,  I  think  ive  have  a  good 
many  points  in  common  with  a  big  steam-engine." 

I  hinted  that  we  were  not  quite  such  irresponsi- 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET*  193 

ble  machinery ;  that  we  at  least  knew  the  Hand 
who  built  us  and  set  us  agoing.  But  contemplating 
this  great  mass  of  inert  matter,  which  a  few  breaths 
of  vapor  would  make  all  alive  and  instinct  with 
power  for  good  or  evil,  set  afloat  on  the  wide  ocean,  ^ 
where  it  became  a  mere  atom  of  nothingness,  yet 
had  to  hold  on  its  way,  laboring  in  darkness,  but 
laboring  ever — verily,  the  steam-engine  did  seem 
not  very  unlike  us. 

The  "  Novelty  "Works,  New  York" — so  said  a 
brass  inscription  over  its  head — have  need  to  be 
proud  of  this  their  magnificent  monster,  every  inch 
of  which  is  as  daintily  finished  as  the  workmanship 
of  a  lady's  watch.  It  is  contrived,  they  say,  with 
great  saving  of  space  and  economy  of  fuel,  the  1400 
tons  of  coal  which  it  has  to  devour  in  a  single  voy- 
age being  considered  quite  a  light  provender.  In 
return,  the  quantity  of  fresh  water  which  it  pro- 
duces by  condensation  of  its  steam  supplies  the  ship 
abundantly.  All  that  seemed  needed  was  that  it 
should  manufacture  its  own  gas;  and  various  ad- 
mirable schemes  to  that  effect  were  started  by  our 
party,  wanting  in  only  two  qualities,  practicability 
and  safety.  It  did  strike  a  non-professional  audi- 
tor, whose  two  great  terrors  in  life  are  gas  and  the 
stormy  ocean,  that  to  be  exposed  to  the  perils  of . 
both  would  a  little  detract  from  the  pleasures  of 
the  trip ;  but  that  idea  was  scouted  contemptuously 
by  the  rest  of  the  party.  No  doubt  those  labyrinth- 

I 


194  STUDIES   FBOM   LIFE. 

ine  passages  of  cabins,  so  exactly  similar  that  the 
owners  must  apparently  find  their  berths  by  the 
merest  accident,  will  ere  long  be  illuminated  like 
our  streets  and  squares;  and  instead  of  "Douse  the 
glim,"  the  word  will  be,  "  Turn  off  the  meter." 

Strange  to  think  of  that  huge  floating  castle — 
quite  a  little  town — steaming  on  through  the  dark- 
ness, with  all  its  sleeping  freight,  of  which  even  the 
list  of  the  crew  reads  as  follows :  "  1  commander, 
4  mates,  1  surgeon,  1  purser,  4  quarter -masters, 

2  carpenters,  1  boatswain,  36  seamen,  1  engineer, 

3  assistants,  6  superintendents  of  fires  and  boilers, 

4  oilers  (!),  2  engineers'  store-keepers,  24  firemen, 
36  coal-passers,  1  steward,  3  assistants,  36  waiters, 
3  stewardesses,  2  store-keepers,  1  bar-keeper,  1  bar- 
ber, 1  chief  cook,  1  assistant  cook,  1  baker,  2  pastry- 
cooks, 2  engineers7  mess-men,  2  keepers  of  lamps 
and  oil,  1  hose-keeper." 

And  the  safety  of  all,  with  indefinite  passengers 
besides,  dependent,  humanly  speaking,  on  that  one 
head  of  the  "one  commander."  It  had  need  be  a 
sound  head  and  a  steady  one,  and  deserves  a  com- 
fortable berth  to  rest  in — which  it  evidently  has, 
judging  by  the  elegant  appearance  of  the  captain's 
state-rooms,  into  which  we  peered. 

Then  we  wandered  up  and  down  desultorily, 
wondering  where  on  earth  all  this  crew  of  188,  and 
all  the  hundreds  of  visitors  that  we  knew  were  on 
board,  had  vanished  to.  The  great  ship  had  swal- 


BROTHER  JONATHAN'S  PET.  195 

lowed  them  up,  and  they  only  appeared  as  stray 
groups  here  and  there,  or  solitary  sailors  leaning 
over  the  side.  No  bustle,  no  confusion,  and  yet  she 
was  to  sail  to-morrow.  There  could  not  be  a  great* 
er  proof  of  the  huge  size  and  admirable  arrange- 
ments of  Brother  Jonathan's  Pet. 

"  Any  one  going  back  by  the  next  boat?"  Yes, 
about  300  or  so,  who,  appearing  out  of  inconceiv- 
able nooks,  descended  the  ship's  side,  and  crowded 
the  river-boat  on  every  square  foot  which  two  hu- 
man feet  could  take  possession  of.  In  five  minutes 
we  had  dropped  astern,  and  saw  the  great  hull  of 
the  Adriatic  gradually  lessening  to  that  slender 
shape  into  which  she  dwindles  at  a  very  slight  dis- 
tance. As  she  lay  with  her  stars  and  stripes  stream- 
ing against  the  still  clear  sky,  and  the  red  winter 
sunset  throwing  its  glow  upon  her  great  motionless 
paddle-wheels,  we  heartily  wished  her  good-speed 
— ay,  even  though  our  own  Persia  lay,  a  short  space 
off,  pluming  her  feathers  for  the  flight,  for  she  was  to 
sail  two  days  after,  and  as  we  repeated,  "Wouldn't 
her  captain  clap  on  steam,  and  run  her,  literally,  to 
within  an  inch  of  her  life,  rather  than  be  beaten  by 
the  Yankee!" 

Happy,  harmless  rivalry !  As  we  watched  the 
two  steamers  lying  so  peacefully  alongside,  with 
the  fair  evening  light  upon  them  both — the  sun 
going  down  toward  the  other  continent  as  grandly 
as  he  had  risen  with  us  this  morning,  "  making  no 


196  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

step-bairns"  between  east  and  west — one  could  not 
help  trusting  that  the  Governor  of  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  earth  would  keep  both  the  good  ships  safe, 
and  that  fast  sailing  might  be  the  only  rivalry,  the 
only  war  between  ourselves  and  Brother  Jonathan. 


LITERARY  GHOULS.  197 


Citerarg 

A  PROTEST   FROM  THE   OTHER  WORLD. 

I  AM  a  dead  author. 

"What  I  wrote,  or  how  I  wrote  it,  whether  well  or 
ill,  is  unimportant  now:  I  dwell  "  in  the  land  where 
all  things  are  forgotten."  The  reason  why  I  am 
permitted  "  again  in  complete  steel" — both  as  to  pen 
and  heart — to  reappear  in  the  mundane  sphere, 
through  the  medium  of  this  work,  will  be  obvious 
in  the  following  communication.  How  communi- 
cated, by  tapping,  table-moving,  or  spirit-writing, 
befits  not  me  to  say,  and  is  irrelevant  to  the  subject 
under  consideration.  I  will  only  solemnly  attest 
that  the  sole  devil  which  has  any  hand  in  the 
matter  is  the  printer's. 

I  am  dead.  For  me,  no  more  the  delays  of  pub- 
lishers, the  stupidity  or  ill-nature  of  reviewers,  the 
praise,  blame,  or  curiosity  of  the  public.  Into  "  the 
silent  land,"  my  works,  whether  4to,  8vo,  or  12mo, 
happily  do  not  follow  me ;  I  shuffled  them  all  off 
with  this  mortal  coil ;  left  them  to  take  their  chance 
of  surviving  me ;  and  may  their  faults  lie  on  them 
as  gently  as  library  dust ! 


198  STUDIES   FROM  LIFE. 

For  my  dust,  that  also  is  a  secondary  considera- 
tion to  me  now ;  yet  I  have  a  kindly  feeling  for 
the  relics  of  what  often  hampered  me  most  terribly 
during  life.  Occasionally  I  wander  airily  round  a 
certain  suburban  cemetery,  to  take  an  amused  ob- 
servation of  a  certain  elegant  vase,  with  a  marble 
laurel- wreath  at  top,  and  underneath  an  inscription 
attesting  my  great  literary  merit,  and  the  irrepara- 
ble loss  which  I  am  to  society. 

Yet  that  inconsolable  society  is  gradually  ceas- 
ing to  name  me,  either  in  sympathy  or  admiration. 
Shortly  I  shall  be  only  remembered  by  a  faithful 
household  or  two  as  "  our  poor  dear  John.'7  I  am 
not  now  ashamed  of  being  plain  "  John,"  and  should 
be  well  content  to  see  on  the  aforesaid  picturesque 
vase  only  that  name  and  my  surname,  with  the  date 
of  my  birth  and  death — the  sole  facts  of  moment  to 
me  now — or  perhaps  some  modern  version  of  the 
familiar  old  epitaph : 

11  Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake,  forbeare 
To  digg  ye  dust  encloased  here  : 
Blest  be  ye  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones.'* 

Query?  had  Shakspeare  any  foreboding  of,  or  did 
he  mean  any  occult  reference  to,  a  certain  race  of 
literary  ghouls,  which  in  latter  ages  delight  in  ex- 
huming, not  the  bodies,  but  the  souls  of  dead  au- 
thors, who,  unlike  himself,  are  hapless  enough  to 
leave  behind  them  materials  for  biography  ?  For- 


LITERARY  GHOULS.  199 

tunate  Will !  whose  "  second-best  bed,"  left  to  thy 
wife  Anne,  is  the  sole  clew  to  thy  matrimonial  his- 
tory— whose  few  scribbled  signatures  are  thy  only 
autographs  extant — who  tookest  no  steps  whatever 
to  make  thy  life  known  to  posterity,  but  wast  con- 
tent to  lie  down  and  sleep  by  Avon  side,  leaving 
only  that  sacred  dust,  and  a  few  unconsidered  trifles 
of  chiefly  manuscript  plays,  which  have  secured  for 
thee  an  earthly  immortality ! 

It  was  reserved  for  the  resurrectionists  of  modern 
times  to  do  worse  than  Shakspeare's  curse  depre- 
cates— to  dig  up,  not  the  bones,  but  the  memories 
of  the  departed  great,  exposing  them  like  mummies 
under  a  glass  case,  sixpence  a  peep,  namely,  three 
vols.  8vo,  charged  twopence  each  for  perusal ;  may 
be  had  at  any  circulating  library.  After  which,  all 
the  critics  in  all  the  reviews  and  newspapers  place 
them  on  a  sort  of  intellectual  dissecting-table,  where 
they  are  lectured  upon  learnedly,  and  anatomized 
limb  by  limb,  muscle  by  muscle — not  at  all  out  of 
mere  curiosity,  oh  dear  no  !  but  simply  for  the  good 
of  science  and  the  benefit  of  mankind :  a  proceed- 
ing vastly  interesting  and  quite  unobjectionable, 
except  for  any  who  may  chance  to  find — as  has 
more  than  once  been  found — some  near  relative  or 
beloved  friend  in  the  inanimate  "subject"  of  Sur- 
geon's Hall. 

I  am  incited  to  express  myself  thus  by  being  the 
elected  spokesman  of  a  committee  of  ghosts,  who, 


200  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

in  so  far  as  spirits  can  suffer  wrong,  save  from  the 
sorrowful  beholding  of  it,  have  been  wronged  in 
this  fashion  since  they  left  the  mortal  sphere.  Al- 
though to  us,  in  our  celestial  Hades,  all  this  clatter 
about  us 

"No  more  disturbs  our  calm  repose 
Than  summer  evening's  latest  sigh 
That  shuts  the  rose," 

still  we  deem  it  right,  for  truth's  sake,  that  a  voice 
from  the  other  world  should  convey  our  opinion  on 
the  matter. 

We  abide — where,  it  matters  not,  as  space,  like 
time,  belongs  only  to  the  flesh.  We  are  often 
drawn  together,  as  congenial  spirits  are  in  life  and 
after ;  and  we  converse  sometimes  of  earthly  mat- 
ters, which  we  are  aware  of,  for  to  be  a  spirit  im- 
plies to  know.  How,  or  how  much  we  know,  I  shall 
not  explain,  as  you  will  all  find  it  out  for  yourselves 
at  no  distant  day.  We  rarely  speak  of  our  own 
books — we  have  said  our  say,  and  done  with  it — 
but  we  sometimes  discuss  the  books  that  have  been 
written  upon  us  since  our  departure. 

These  are  of  every  sort,  from  the  humble  one- 
volume  Remains,  compiled  by  some  affectionate 
heart  which  deemed  the  loss  as  fatal  for  the  world 
as  for  itself,  to  the  large  and  boastful  Memoir  of 
somebody  who  was  never  heard  of  till  he  became  a 
biographee,  solely,  it  would  appear,  for  the  glorifica- 
tion of  his  biographer ;  from  the  plain,  honest  Life, 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  201 

with  nothing  in  it  to  chronicle  except  useful  deeds 
or  scientific  researches,  and  the  pathetic  Final  Me- 
morials, throwing  light  upon  long-secret  griefs  and 
ended  labors,  down  to  the  heaps  of  Reminiscences, 
Recollections,  Journals,  and  Correspondences,  piled  up 
like  a  cairn  over  some  unfortunate — of  whom,  after 
all,  the  utmost  that  can  be  said  is  included  in  a  verse 
by  one — whose  hint  his  biographer  had  much  better 
have  taken : 

"  Once  in  the  flight  of  ages  past 

There  lived  a  man.     And  who  was  he? 
Mortal,  howe'er  thy  lot  be  cast, 
That  man  resembled  thee." 

And  all  that  need  be  told  of  him,  which  he  has  not 
told  of  himself  by  writings  or  actions,  the  bard  goes 
on  to  say, 

"Is  this:  There  lived  a  man." 

But  these  ghouls  have  no  respect  to  the  image  of 
man,  either  spiritually  or  corporeally.  Alas  for  us 
poor  ghosts,  they  have  dragged  into  the  open  day- 
light all  our  mental  and  physical  defects ;  described 
minutely  our  personality,  living,  and,  in  one  or  two 
instances,  the  appearance  of  our  poor  corpses  after 
we  were  dead.  Our  vices,  follies,  sufferings,  our 
family  secrets  and  domestic  wrongs,  have  been  alike 
paraded  before  the  world.  Truths,  half-truths,  or 
two  half-truths  so  put  together  as  to  form  a  whole 
falsehood,  have  been  grubbed  up  in  all  directions, 
and  either  dovetailed  into  a  ground-work  purely 
l  2 


202  STUDIES  FKOM   LIFE. 

imaginary,  or  arranged  into  a  mosaic  of  most  charm- 
ing pattern,  with,  the  slight  drawback  that  the  de- 
sign of  it,  and  of  our  history,  is  entirely  the  work 
of  our  ingenious  biographer. 

All  this  harms  us  not ;  but  we  regard  the  matter 
as  something  sad  and  strange,  which  may  be  harm- 
ful to  authors  now  living,  who  one  day  will  in  their 
turn  become  ghosts  and  biographical  subjects. 

Thus,  suppose  we,  who  most  of  us  passed  our 
sublunary  existence  like  ordinary  men  and  women; 
wrote  our  books,  and  published  them,  certainly;  but 
for  ourselves  courted  peace,  privacy,  and  the  medi- 
tative life  which  all  true  authors  love — suppose  we 
had  been  aware  that  upon  us,  defunct,  a  greedy  bi- 
ographer would  seize,  rake  up  all  our  doings,  undo- 
ings, and  misdoings ;  record  how  we  dressed,  and 
walked,  and  ate  our  dinners;  jot  down,  in  various 
incorrect  forms,  which  we  have  no  power  to  set 
right,  every  careless  or  foolish  word  we  said,  with 
our  apparent  motive  for  saying  it;  lure  from  weak, 
faithless,  or  indifferent  friends  our  most  private  let- 
ters, written,  perhaps,  as  others  beside  the  luckless 
genus  irritabile  do  write  letters,  on  the  impulse  of 
the  moment,  or  under  the  influence  of  some  acci- 
dental mood ;  call  upon  all  our  kindred  and  ac- 
quaintance— one  half  of  whom  knew  little  of.  us, 
and  the  other  half  never  understood  us  at  all — for 
every  possible  reminiscence  concerning  us.  Alack ! 
alack !  had  we  suspected  this,  what  a  living  death 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  203 

of  apprehension,  annoyance,  and  mistrust  would 
have  been  ours !  And  for  the  result  ?  We  should 
either  have  doubted  our  nearest  and  dearest,  and 
retired  in  disgust  from  the  impertinent  world,  to 
leave  our  bones  mouldering  unmolested  in  some 
African  desert  or  American  cave,  or  we  should  have 
carefully  arranged  our  whole  life  with  a  view  to 
posthumous  publication.  We  should  never  have 
made  a  remark  without  considering  how  it  would 
look  in  Srnith-iana.  We  should  have  combed  our 
hair,  tied  our  neckcloth,  selected  our  gowns  and 
gloves  strictly  for  the  benefit  of  posterity.  Our 
very  ledgers,  house -accounts,  and  washing -books 
would  have  been  penned  with  an  eye  to  autographs. 
We  should  have  eaten,  drunk,  and  slept  like  flies 
under  a  tumbler-glass,  waiting  to  be  put  in  amber, 
or  like  strange  beasts,  conscious  that  their  destiny 
is  merely  from  the  Zoological  Gardens  to  the  Brit- 
ish Museum.  Nay,  those  of  us  whom  a  beneficent 
Providence  removed  from  the  world  before  the  de- 
velopment of  the  present  biography  mania  would 
have  trembled  lest  even  on  the  slender  data  now 
attainable  concerning  them  some  literary  Professor 
Owen  might  put  them  together,  and  lecture  on  them 
in  the  character  of  extinct  animals. 

This  last  case  is  the  least  reprehensible.  When 
his  own  generation  has  died  out,  and  no  living  be- 
ing can  be  wounded  by  any  revelations  concerning 
him ;  when  an  after-age  has  decided  his  permanent 


204  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

position  in  letters,  and  become  at  once  less  preju- 
diced, and  more  just  with  regard  to  both  his  faults 
and  his  virtues,  then  the  world  has  some  right  to 
know  the  main  facts  of  an  author's  personal  history, 
at  least  so  far  as  to  discover  whether  his  life  corre- 
sponded with  his  works,  which  makes  the  works 
themselves  doubly  valuable.  But  that  one  whose 
whole  or  chief  intercourse  with  the  public  has  been 
by  the  pen — who  has  never  put  himself  forward  in 
any  of  those  positions  which  necessarily  make  a 
man  public  property,  should  be  seized  upon  as  such 
the  minute  the  breath  leaves  him,  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  world,  is  a  proceeding  the  justice  of 
which  is  certainly  debatable. 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  suppose  a  case  in  which 
the  books  left  behind  are  the  one  valuable  residuum 
of  a  worthless  life,  during  which  the  unhappy  au- 
thor has 

"  Known  the  right,  and  yet  the  wrong  pursued ;" 

a  life  wherein,  from  weakness,  wickedness,  or  folly, 
his  career  as  a  man  furnishes  no  possible  example 
to  posterity,  except  to  wonder  how  he  ever  could 
have  written  as  beautifully  as  he  did. 

Take,  for  instance,  Hermion,  whose  worldly  name, 
did  I  give  it,  would  be  recognized  as  one  for  years 
incensed  with  most  odorous  idolatry.  What  was 
Hermion?  A  wild,  handsome  37oung  aristocrat, 
stuffed  full  with  that  passionate  egotism  and  inordi- 
nate love  of  approbation  which  is  the  bane  of  many 


LITEKAKY   GHOULS.  205 

second-rate,  of  a  few  even  first-rate  geniuses.  Con- 
sequently obnoxious  to  most  men — though,  because 
they  only  beheld  the  fairer  side  of  his  character, 
adored  by  numerous  women ;  till,  whipped  on  one 
cheek,  caressed  on  the  other,  and  maddened  within 
by  all  the  temptations  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and 
the  devil,  this  poet,  this  demigod,  who  lived  not 
long  enough  to  know  himself  a  fool,  ay,  and  some- 
what of  a  villain  to  boot,  was  discovered  after  his 
death  to  be  both. 

And  how  ?  Because  there  was  no  one  to  say  "  he 
is  dead,  and  he  shall  be  buried ;  buried  altogether, 
leaving  to  posterity  only  the  best  and  noblest  part 
of  him — his  writings."  Therefore,  over  his  corpse 
biographers  began  to  swarm  like  flies.  A  fashion- 
able friend,  for  fear  of  other  fashionable  friends  sup- 
pressing his  autobiography,  which  the  man  himself 
had  carefully  written,  and  which  might — at  least 
from  unwilling  internal  evidence — have  had  one 
value — truth — puts  forth  a  garbled  Life.  A  senti- 
mental, kindly,  shallow  lady  -  acquaintance  details 
his  Conversations;  other  acquaintances,  denomina- 
ted "friends" — but  he  could  not  have  had  one  real 
friend  in  the  world,  this  poor  Hermion,  who  loved 
only  himself — they  too,  in  successive  years,  throng 
the  press,  dilating  on  his  private  history  and  man- 
ner of  life — how  he  starved  for  fear  of  obesity,  how 
he  wrote  noble  poetry  of  nights,  and  talked  slang 
and  ribaldry  by  day ;  how  the  worshiped  bard  of 


206  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

half  the  century  was  in  reality,  when  you  came  to 
be  intimate  with  him,  a  selfish,  conceited,  parsimo- 
nious, narrow-minded,  vacillating,  irritable  fop; 
which  in  degree  he  was,  yet  not  void  of  some  re- 
deemable qualities ;  and  an  undoubtedly  great  poet ; 
for  poets  are  but  men.  Was  it  for  his  friends  to 
hang  him  up  on  a  kind  of  glorified  gibbet  for  every 
crow  to  peck  at,  and  every  passer-by  to  shudder  or 
sneer  ?  And  will  their  doing  so  advantage  any  hu- 
man being?  Will  it  not,  in  those  who  have  not 
attained  the  large  vision  of  us  immortals,  create  a 
belief  that  all  poets  must  be  weak,  puppyish,  ego- 
tistical, because  this  poet  was  so?  Will  they  not 
be  led  to  think  that  poetry  itself  must  be  a  beautiful 
lie,  because  a  man  could  sit  in  the  quiet  dead  of 
night,  writing  out  of  the  inmost  depths  of  his  na- 
ture, his  best,  truest  self,  things  worthy  of  it  and 
him,  yet  rise  up  next  day,  put  on  his  weak,  foul, 
conceited  self,  and  persuade  short-sighted  people 
that  that  was  the  real  Hermion  after  all?  Alas! 
for  this  man,  who,  like  many  another  man,  was  tor- 
mented with  two  warring  natures  in  his  heart ;  he 
lived  not  long  enough  to 

"Throw  away  the  worser  half  of  it, 
And  live  the  purer  with  the  other  half." 

And  so  he  died;  and  a  fine  carrion-feast  has  he 
made  for  biographers  ever  since. 

So  has  his  contemporary,  who,  entering  among 


LITERAKY  GHOULS.  207 

us  ghosts,  strangely  surprised  to  find  himself  im- 
mortal, 

"  Came  wandering  by, 

A  shadow  like  an  angel,  with  bright  hair 

Dabbled  in  blood" 

and  salt  sea-brine. 

A  sapient  journal,  whose  comments  on  us  depart- 
ed often  amuse  us  mightily  in  the  upper  sphere,  as- 
serts, noticing  the  last  of  the  numerous  memorials 
of  Spiridion,  "  that  it  supplies  reasons  why  a  com- 
plete life  of  him  never  can  be,  perhaps  never  ought 
to  be  written." 

I  put  it  to  the  conscience  of  mortals  whether  "a 
complete  life"  of  any  human  being  can  be  written 
except  by  the  pen  of  the  recording  angel? 

If  it  be  so  difficult  for  a  biographer  to  get  at  the 
simplest,  most  patent  facts  in  his  author's  career, 
how  shall  he  discover  the  life  in  full,  inner  and  out- 
er, and  paint  it  clearly,  honestly,  capably — cramped 
by  no  prejudices,  hesitating  at  no  revelations,  both 
able  and  willing  to  show  forth  undisguisedly  the 
whole  man  ?  How,  even  if  he  wished,  can  he  do 
this,  unless  he  were  the  man's  alter  ego,  sufficiently 
understanding  all  his  peculiarities  to  place  his  char- 
acter in  its  true  light  before  the  world  ? 

And  wras  there  ever,  in  his  lifetime,  any  alter  ego 
who  thus  thoroughly  understood  Spiridion  ? 

Unaccountable  as  it  may  be,  it  is  no  less  true, 
that  most  poets  are  all  their  days  more  or  less  chil- 


208  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

dren,  and  want  taking  care  of  like  children.  The 
mens  divinior  seems  to  unfit  them  partially  for  the 
hard  necessities  of  life,  unless,  as  is  sometimes — 
would  it  were  oftener! — the  case,  their  moral  con- 
scientiousness is  strong  enough  to  force  them  to  ac- 
quire qualities  not  innate  or  coexistent  with  what 
is  termed  "  the  poetic  temperament,"  namely,  pru- 
dence, forethought,  common  sense — that  solid  wis- 
dom which,  in  the  sum  of  life,  outweighs  all  genius. 

This  Spiridion  never  had.  Consequently,  the 
busy  world,  deep  in  counter  and  merchandise, 
houses  and  lands,  thrusts  its  hands  into  its  pockets, 
and  laughs  over  the  picture  of  the  beardless  youth 
and  his  baby -wife  running  from  place  to  place,  in- 
tending at  each  charming  spot  to  stay  "  forever." 
Afterward,  when,  with  a  kind  of  childish  ignorance 
rather  than  wickedness,  he  had  broken  laws,  creeds, 
and  women's  hearts,  it  turns  disgusted  from  the  poor 
poet  who  lives  contentedly  a  life  as  idle  and  fickle 
as  that  of  a  meadow  butterfly,  and,  with  one  or  two 
sad  exceptions,  almost  as  harmless.  Utterly  incom- 
prehensible to  any  respectable  gentleman  coming 
home  at  6  P.M.  precisely  to  his  splendid  meal  is 
the  portrait  drawn  of  our  Spiridion,  standing  read- 
ing a  whole  day  long  with  his  untested  cold  meat 
beside  him,  then  starting  with  a  girlish  blush,  "  Bless 
me,  I  must  have  forgotten  my  dinner !" 

And  worse  than  incomprehensible  —  altogether 
hateful,  and  anathema  maranatha,  is  the  daring  bias- 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  209 

phemy  of  his  indignant  youth,  when,  blindly  con- 
founding the  Christianity  of  what  was  then  a  mere 
formalist  Church  with  the  Christianity  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  he  dubbed  himself  atheist,  to  show  his  abhor- 
rence of  both.  Poor  Spiridion !  yet  any  one  study- 
ing his  life,  which,  with  all  its  faults,  was  so  pure, 
unselfish,  generous — so  essentially  the  Christlike  life 
of  love — making  even  his  enemies  love  him  as  soon 
as  they  came  to  know  him,  can  not  but  acknowl- 
edge that  many  a  saintly  bishop  has  been,  practical- 
ly, Jess  of  a  Christian  than  he. 

But  why  write  his  life  at  all  ?  Why  expose  the 
miserable  arcana  of  a  luckless  marriage — a  dis- 
orderly home — which  many  a  man  has  to  suffer, 
though  he  is  fortunately  not  written  about.  Why 
describe  every  writhing  of  the  diseased  restlessness 
and  melancholy  that  constitute  a  phase  of  mental 
development  which  almost  every  sensitive  nature  is 
doomed  to  pass  through  during  youth,  until  the  fe- 
vers and  despairs  gradually  wear  themselves  out, 
and  the  individual  looks  back  on  his  old  self — 
which,  having  happily  been  outlived,  has  never 
been  chronicled — with  a  curious  mixture  of  won- 
der and  pity,  that  makes  him  tolerant  and  hopeful 
for  all  others  going  through  the  same  ordeal.  But, 
while  his  poor,  young,  tender  feet  were  yet  in  the 
midst  of  those  red-hot  plowshares,  Spiridion  drop- 
ped and  died. 

Yet  understand  us:  we  gbbsts  do  not  wish  to 


210  STUDIES   FEOM   LIFE. 

lay  an  embargo  on  all  biographies,  thereby  annihi- 
lating the  natural  wish  of  the  human  heart  to  be 
remembered  after  death,  and  causing  the  worth  and 
beauty  of  good  men's  histories  to  be  indeed 

"Interred  with  their  bones." 

Not  so.  Every  thing  that  is  great  and  noble,  vir- 
tuous and  heroic  in  any  author's  life — in  the  life  of 
any  man  or  woman — by  all  means,  after  a  decent 
time  has  elapsed,  let  it  be  faithfully  related,  for  the 
comfort,  instruction,  and  example  of  later  genera- 
tions. The  world  has  a  right  to  hear  and  exact 
such  chronicles  of  its  generations  gone  by. 

But  let  us  be  chronicled,  not  as  authors  because 
we  have  written  a  book  or  so  worth  reading,  but 
because  we  have  lived  a  life  worth  remembering, 
the  story  of  which  will  have  a  beneficial  influence 
on  lives  yet  to  come.  If  any  incense  poured  upon, 
or  saintly  odors  arising  from  our  mortal  dust  can 
reach  and  delight  us  in  our  immortality,  it  must  be 
thus  to  know  that  neither  our  doings  nor  our  suf- 
ferings have  been  altogether  in  vain.  And  for  all 
concerning  us  that  was  purely  personal,  in  no  way 
differing  from  the  rest  of  our  species — which  can 
neither  " point  a  moral"  nor  "adorn  a  tale,"  but 
only  minister  to  an  idle  and  prurient  curiosity — in 
charity's  name,  let  it  be  buried  with  us. 

Here,  in  this  abode  of  calm,  where  the  strongest 
puff  of  fame  can  not  send  a  single  ripple  across  the 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  211 

sea  of  eternity,  we  ghosts  wish,  it  were  better  under- 
stood that,  however  great  our  writings,  we  ourselves 
were  but  human,  and  no  more  was  to  be  expected 
of  us  than  struggling  humanity  can  achieve ;  that 
our  genius  was  an  accidental  quality,  in  no  way 
exempting  us  from  the  temptations,  any  more  than 
exonerating  us  from  the  duties  of  our  kind-;  that, 
if  we  erred,  it  was  not  our  genius,  but  our  miserable 
human  nature  that  overcame  us,  as  it  does  other 
men.  We  claim  for  our  memories  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  immunities  granted  to  others — not 
authors — namely,  that,  except  for  some  great  benefit 
to  the  human  race,  you  have  no  more  right  to  drag 
a  man's  history,  fair  or  foul,  out  of  the  merciful 
shadows  of  the  tomb,  than  you  have  to  dig  up  and 
sell  his  dead  body,  to  be  exhibited  in  a  penny  peep- 
show  at  Bartholomew  Fair.  The  true  manner  of 
dealing  with  the  dead  at  all  times  Shakspeare  seems 
to  indicate  when  he  makes  Queen  Katherine  say  of 
Wolsey : 

"  Yet  thus  far,  Griffiths,  yive  me  leave  to  speak  him, 
And  yet  with  chanty." 

She  would  not  criticise  her  bitterest  enemy,  after  he 
was  no  more,  without  the  apology,  "  Give  me  leave" 
It  would  be  well  if  some  biographers  I  could  name 
had  been  as  tender. 

And  this  brings  me  to  speak  a  word  on  the  part 
of  some  gentle  ghosts  among  us,  who,  inasmuch  as 
women  naturally  shrink  from  publicity  more  than 


212  STUDIES   FKOM  LIFE. 

men,  have  been  the  more  sorely  aggrieved.  I  refer 
not  to  those  who,  conscious  of  living  always  in  the 
public  eye,  designedly  left  their  Diaries,  etc.,  behind 
them,  elegantly  and  artistically  arranged — a  little 
couleur  de  rose  maybe — on  the  principle  that 

"One  would  not  look  quite  frightful  when  one's  dead,'' 

but  still  vastly  amusing ;  and  no  doubt  an  appreci- 
ative public  made  itself  very  merry  over  these  dead 
women,  whose  life  was  a  perpetual  pose  plastique, 
and  who  took  care  to  die  in  the  most  graceful  of 
attitudes.  They  have  had  their  desire,  though  every 
one  of  them  may  be  wise  enough  to  be  ashamed  of 
it  now. 

But  for  others  who  lived  naturally,  painfully, 
finding  the  burden  of  existence  quite  hard  enough 
of  itself,  without  having  to  consider  how  it  would 
appear  as  a  picture  for  future  biographers ;  who  ar- 
ranged no  materials,  kept  no  intentional  records, 
and  evidently  had  not  the  slightest  notion  of  ever 
being  made  into  a  book,  the  case  is  widely  dif- 
ferent. 

The  generality  of  female  authors  do  not  desire, 
living  or  dead,  to  be  made  into  a  public  spectacle. 
Something  in  womanhood  instinctively  revolts  from 
it,  as  it  would  from  caressing  its  dearest  friends  at 
a  railway  station,  or  performing  its  toilet  in  the  open 
air.  "Women's  domestic  ways,  actions,  and  emotions 
are  so  much  more  demonstrative,  and,  at  the  same 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  213 

time,  more  reticent  than  men's,  that  to  tear  the  veil 
from  their  lives  seems  a  far  more  cruel  wrong. 

And  in  many  instances  even  to  accomplish  it  is 
most  difficult.  The  true  key  to  feminine  nature  is 
so  delicate,  so  hidden,  that  it  is  all  but  impossible 
to  be  found.  Thus,  in  many  female  biographies 
lately  written,  one  feels  by  instinct  that  not  one 
half  of  the  life  is  unfolded — that  much  which 
would  reconcile  jarring  mysteries,  and  harmonize 
the  whole,  has  either  never  been  discovered,  or,  if 
discovered,  is  necessarily  suppressed.  Whether  or 
not  it  be  so  with  men— there  probably  never  is 
written  an  absolutely  true  life  of  any  woman,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  intricacies  of  female  na- 
ture are  incomprehensible  except  to  a  woman ;  and 
any  biographer  of  real  womanly  feeling,  if  even 
she  discovered,  would  never  dream  of  publishing 
them. 

Take,  for  example,  one  of  the  most  touching  me- 
moirs of  modern  times,  the  subject  of  which  was  a 
shy,  timid,  suffering  being,  almost  unknown,  except 
through  her  books,  until  she  died.  Death,  waiting 
but  for  the  crowning  of  a  long,  sad  life  with  one 
drop  of  happiness,  took  her  suddenly  away  in  the 
prime  of  her  years.  Now  the  public  thirsts  with 
curiosity  about  her;  now  publishers  foresee  that 
any  fragment  concerning  her  is  sure  to  sell ;  now 
her  few  friends  and  fewer  acquaintance  discover 
that  they  had  entertained  an  angel  unawares,  and 


214:  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

eagerly  rack  their  memories  for  all  possible  memo- 
rials of  her. 

So  a  Life  is  written,  carefully,  delicately,  and  hon- 
estly, with  due  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  living 
and  the  cherished  memory  of  the  dead;  written 
doubtless  as  conscientiously  as  such  a  life  could 
possibly  have  been  written ;  but — it  ought  never  to 
have  been  written  at  all;  for  what  is  the  result 
of  it? 

A  creature  so  reserved  by  nature  that  the  ordi- 
nary attention  of  society  to  a  "  celebrated  author" 
was  abhorrent  to  her,  making  her  shrink  with  actual 
pain,  is,  after  death,  exposed  openly  to  the  world; 
her  innermost  thoughts,  words,  and  actions  display- 
ed; her  letters,  written  in  the  anguish  of  religious 
doubt,  or  family  affliction,  or  intolerable  bodily  pain, 
printed  and  published  for  the  amusement  of  every 
careless  or  sarcastic  eye;  her  books  analyzed,  in 
order  to  apportion  fictitious  characters  among  real 
originals,  and  try  to  extract  from  the  imagination 
the  history  of  the  heart.  Every  misfortune,  error, 
and  disgrace  of  her  kindred,  which  you  feel  sure 
the  woman  herself  would  have  concealed  to  the  last 
extremity  of  sacred  endurance,  is  trumpeted  out  to 
a  harsh,  cynical,  or  indifferent  world,  of  which  the 
tender-hearted  portion  can  but  feel  instinctively  one 
emotion:  "For  charity's  sake — for  the  dead  wom- 
an's sake — leave  the  whole  history  untold.  Cover 
it  up  ;  let  her  name  and  her  books  live,  but  let  her 
life  and  its  sorrows  be  heard  of  no  more." 


LITERARY   GHOULS.  215 

For,  after  all,  what  moral  is  gained  from  it?  a 
chronicle  so  sad,  so  incomplete,  that  apparently  it 
does  not  "justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man."  To 
mortals,  on  whom  its  page  closed  with  that  last  piti- 
ful sigh  of  hers — "  Am  I  going  to  die,  when  we 
have  been  so  happy  ?" — it  can  administer  no  pos- 
sible lesson  except  of  dull,  hopeless  endurance. 
Many  similar  lives  there  are,  of  which  we  on  the 
other  side  the  grave  are  alone  permitted  to  see  the 
binding  up  of  the  broken  web — the  solution  of  all 
dark  mysteries  in  the  clear  light  of  eternity ;  but 
such  lives  ought  never  to  be  written.  It  is  impos- 
sible that  any  human  being  can  write  them  fairly 
and  fully,  and  to  attempt  doing  so  incompletely  is 
profanity  toward  ghosts  and  men,  as  well  as  toward 
the  Father  of  both. 

"  I  would  not  have  used  any  living  creature  as 
some  of  my  dear  friends  have  used  me,'7  said,  in  the 
soft  utterance  of  the  unknown  world,  this  gentle 
ghost  of  whom  I  am  speaking ;  "  I  would  not,  even 
had  my  correspondent  been  so  foolish  as  to  put  her 
heart  in  her  letters,  have  after  her  death  put  it  also 
into  print.  I  would  have  done  with  all  her  inti- 
mate correspondence  as  a  friend  of  mine,  estranged, 
yet  soon  to  be  regained,  is  wise  and  tender  enough 
to  do  with  hers — burned  it.  All  the  publishers  and 
public  in  the  world  hammering  at  my  doors  should 
never  have  torn  my  friend's  secrets  out  of  my  heart. 
I  would  have  had  all  things  done  for  her,  dead,  ex- 


216  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

actly  as  would  have  been  done  by  her,  living.  Not 
one  breath  of  the  idle  curiosity  which  she  hated 
during  life  should  have  been  allowed  to  expend  it- 
self over  her  tomb.  "  But  it  harms  not  me,"  said 
the  silver  voice,  speaking  calmly,  as  if  of  another 
person,  and  breaking  up  the  circle  from  which  I, 
the  appointed  delegate,  give  this  communication. 
"My  body  sleeps  in  peace  among  my  moorlands, 
and  I  live  here — in  the  one  true  heart  that  loved 
me." 

And  then — as  one  of  the  greatest  of  poets,  still  in 
the  flesh,  tries  to  describe,  painting  the  world  which 
he  knows  not  yet,  but  shall  know — 

"Her  face 

Glowed  as  I  looked  at  her. 
She  locked  her  lips — she  left  me  where  I  stood. 
*  Glory  to  God, '  she  sang,  and  passed  afar, 
Thridding  the  sombre  boskage  of  the  wood 
Toward  the  morning  star." 


ABOUT  MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  217 


IN  a  recent  discussion  on  the  subject,  it  was  sug- 
gested as  an  argument  in  favor  of  a  man's  marrying 
his  deceased  wife's  sister,  that,  in  such  a  case,  he 
would  have  but  one  mother-in-law.  The  general 
laugh  which  greeted  this  remark  proved  how  strong 
is  the  prejudice  against  that  luckless  relationship, 
upon  which  has  been  immemorially  expended  all 
the  sarcasm  of  the  keen-witted,  all  the  pointless 
abuse  of  the  dull. 

Dare  any  bold  writer,  taking  the  injured  and  un- 
popular side,  venture  a  few  words  in  defense  of  the 
mother-in-law  ? 

Unfortunate  individual !  the  very  name  presents 
her,  in  her  supposed  character,  to  the  mental  eye, 
a  lady,  stout,  loud-voiced,  domineering ;  or  else  thin, 
snappish,  small,  but  fierce,  prone  to  worrying  and 
lamenting;  either  so  overpoweringly  genteel  and 
grand  that  "my  son's  wife,"  poor  little  body, shrinks 
into  a  trembling  nobody  by  her  own  fireside,  or  so 
vulgar  that  u  my  daughter's  'usband"  finds  it  neces- 
sary politely  to  ignore  her,  as  completely  as  she 
does  her  h's  and  her  grammar. 

These  two  characters,  slightly  varied,  constitute 
K 


218  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

the  prominent  idea  current  of  a  mother-in-law. 
How  it  originated  is  difficult  to  account  for;  or  why 
a  poor  lady,  regarded  as  harmless  enough  until  her 
children  marry,  should  immediately  after  that  event 
be  at  once  elevated  to  such  a  painful  pedestal  of 
disagreeableness. 

Books,  perhaps,  may  be  a  little  to  blame  for  this, 
as  in  the  matter  of  step-mothers — of  whom  we  may 
have  somewhat  to  say  anon — and  surely  that  au- 
thor is  to  blame  who,  by  inventing  an  unpleasant 
generalized  portrait,  brings  under  opprobrium  a 
whole  claSvS.  Thus  Thackeray  may  have  done 
more  harm  than  he  was  aware  of  to  many  a  young 
couple  who  find  "  the  old  people"  rather  trying,  as 
old  folks  will  be,  by  his  admirably  painted,  horrible, 
but  happily  exceptional  character  of  Mrs.  Mackenzie. 
He  does  not  reflect  that  his  sweet  little  silly  Rosie, 
as  well  as  the  much-injured  wives  among  these  in- 
dignant young  couples,  might  in  time  have  grown 
up  to  be  themselves  mothers-in-law. 

But  that  is  quite  another  affair.  Mrs.  Henry, 
weeping  angry  tears  over  her  little  Harry,  because 
the  feeding  and  nurturing  of  that  charming  child 
has  been  impertinently  interfered  with  by  Henry's 
mother,  never  looks  forward  to  a  day  when  she  her- 
self might  naturally  feel  some  anxiety  over  the 
bringing  up  of  Harry 's  eldest  born.  Mr.  Jones,  be- 
ginning to  fear  that  Mrs.  Jones's  maternal  parent 
haunts  his  house  a  good  deal,  and  has  far  too  strong 


ABOUT   MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  219 

an  influence  over  dear  Celia,  never  considers  how 
highly  indignant  he  should  feel  if  Mrs.  Jones  and 
himself  were  to  be  grudged  hospitality  by  missy's 
future  spouse — little,  laughing,  fondling  missy, 
whom  he  somehow  can  not  bear  to  think  of  parting 
with,  at  any  time,  to  any  husband  whatsoever ;  nay, 
is  conscious  that,  should  the  hour  and  the  man  ever 
arrive,  papa's  first  impulse  toward  the  hapless  young 
gentleman  would  be  a  strong  desire  to  kick  him 
down  stairs. 

Thus,  as  the  very  foundation  of  a  right  judgment 
in  this,  as  in  most  other  questions,  it  is  necessary  to 
put  one's  self  mentally  on  the  obnoxious  side. 

Few  will  deny  that  the  crisis  in  parenthood  when 
its  immediate  duties  are  ceasing — and,  however  suf- 
ficient its  pleasures  are  to  the  elders,  they  are  no 
longer  so  to  the  youngsters,  already  beginning  to 
find  the  nest  too  small,  to  plume  their  wings  and 
desire  to  fly — must  be  a  very  trying  time  for  all 
parents;  bitter  exceedingly  to  the  many  whose 
wedlock  has  turned  out  less  happy  than  it  prom- 
ised, and  between  whom  the  chief  bond  that  remains 
is  the  children ;  nor  without  its  pain  even  to  the 
most  united  couple,  who,  through  all  the  full  years 
of  family  cares  and  delights,  have  had  resolution 
enough  to  anticipate  the  quiet  empty  years  when, 
all  the  young  ones  having  gone  away,  they  too 
must  once  more  be  content  solely  with  one  another. 
Happy  indeed  that  father  and  mother  whose  conju- 


220  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

gal  love  has.  so  kept  its  prior  place  that  they  are 
not  afraid  even  of  this — the  peaceful,  shadowy  time 
before  they  both  pass  away  into  the  deeper  peace 
of  eternity. 

Nevertheless,  the  first  assumption  of  their  new 
position  is  difficult.  Yonng  wives  do  not  sufficient- 
ly consider  how  very  hard  it  must  be  for  a  fond 
mother  to  lose,  at  once  and  forever,  her  office  as 
primary  agent  in  her  son's  welfare,  if  not  his  happi- 
ness ;  to  give  him  over  to  a  young  lady,  whom  per- 
haps she  has  seen  little  of,  and  that  little  is  not  too 
satisfactory.  For  young  people  in  love  will  be  self- 
ish and  foolish,  and  neglectful  of  old  ties  in  favor  of 
the  new ;  and  almost  every  young  man,  prior  to  his 
marriage,  contrives,  without  meaning  it,  to  wound 
his  own  relations  in  a  thousand  insignificant  things, 
every  one  of  which  is  reflected  back  upon  his  un- 
lucky betrothed,  producing  an  involuntary  jealousy, 
a  tenaciousness  about  small  slights,  a  cruel  quick-  • 
sightedness  over  petty  faults.  All  this  is  bitterly 
hard  for  the  poor  young  stranger  in  the  family,  un- 
less, having  strength  and  self-control  enough  to  re- 
member that  "  a  good  son  makes  a  good  husband," 
she  uses  all  her  influence,  even  in  courting-days,  to 
keep  him  firm  to  his  affection  and  duty.  Also,  her 
own  claim  being,  although  the  higher  and  closer, 
much  the  newer,  the  more  dearly  she  loves  him,  the 
more  careful  she  will  be,  by  no  over-intrusion  of 
rights  already  sufficiently  obvious,  to  jar  against  the 


ABOUT  MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  221 

rights  or  wound  the  feelings  of  others  who  love  him 
too,  especially  his  mother,  who  has  loved  him  all 
his  life. 

Surely  this  fact  alone  ought  to  make  any  young 
woman  who  is  generously  and  faithfully  attached 
to  her  husband  feel  a  peculiar  tenderness  toward 
the  woman  who  bore  him,  nursed  him,  cherished 
him,  if  a  woman  in  any  way  tolerable  or  worthy 
of  love.  Even  if  not,  the  faults  of  the  husband's 
mother  ought  to  be  viewed  more  leniently  than 
those  of  other  people.  She  must  have  had  so  much 
to  bear  with,  as  the  younger  generation  will  find 
out  when  the  third  generation  arrives.  Nay,  the 
common  cares  and  sufferings  of  mere  maternity 
might  well  be  sufficient,  in  another  mother's  eyes, 
to  constitute  an  unalienable  claim  of  respect  due 
from  herself  toward  "  grandmamma." 

"But,"  says  the  incredulous  reader,  "this  is  a 
purely  ideal  view  of  the  subject.  Practically,  what 
can  you  do  with  the  old  lady  who  comes  worrying 
you  in  your  domestic  affairs,  criticising  your  house- 
keeping, dictating  to  you  about  the  management  of 
your  nursery,  finally  cutting  you  to  the  heart  by 
hinting  that  you  don't  take  half  care  enough  of 
4  that  poor  dear  fellow,  who  never  looks  so  well 
now  as  he  did  before  he  was  married.'  " 

Yes,  poor  young  wife!  it  must  be  owned  you 
have  a  good  deal  to  bear  on  your  side  also. 

Daughters  and  sons-in-law  being  always  expected 


222  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

to  be  perfect — the  daughter  or  son  by  blood  being 
of  course  naturally  so  in  the  parental  eyes — causes 
of  necessity  a  few  painful  disenchantments  on  the 
part  of  the  mother-in-law.  She  forgets  that  she 
must  take  her  share  of  the  difficulties  which  are 
sure  to  arise  so  long  as  human  beings  are  a  little 
less  than  angels,  and  earth  is  not  a  domestic  para- 
dise. She  had  best  early  reconcile  herself  to  the 
truth — painful,  yet  just  and  natural — that  she  has 
no  longer  the  first  right  to  her  child.  When  once 
a  young  pair  are  married,  parents,  as  well  as  rela- 
tives and  friends,  must  leave  them  to  make  the  best 
of  one  another.  They  two  are  bound  together  in- 
dissolubly,  and  no  interference  of  a  third  party  can 
ever  mend  what  is  irremediable;  while  even  in 
things  remediable,  any  strong  external  influence  is 
quite  as  likely  to  do  harm  as  good. 

A  wife,  be  she  ever  so  young,  ignorant,  or  foolish, 
must  be  sole  mistress  in  her  husband's  house — and 
not  even  her  own  parents  or  his  have  any  business 
to  interfere  with  her,  except  by  an  occasional  opin- 
ion, or  a  bit  of  affectionate  counsel,  which  is  often 
better  not  given  until  distinctly  asked. 

And  in  the  strangeness,  the  frequent  solitude,  the 
countless  difficulties  of  newly-married  life,  no  doubt 
this  advice  would  be  eagerly  sought  for  had  it  not 
been  overmuch  intruded  at  first.  A  girl,  taken  out 
of  her  large,  merry  family,  to  spend  long,  lonely 
days  in  an  unfamiliar  house,  be  it  ever  so  dear, 


ABOUT  MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  223 

or  entering,  inexperienced,  upon  all  sorts  of  family 
cares,  would  frequently  be  thankful  to  her  very 
heart  for  the  wisdom  and  kindness  of  a  new  moth- 
er, if  only  the  mother  had  early  taken  pains  to  win 
that  confidence  which,  to  be  given,  requires  to  be 
won.  For  neither  love  nor  trust  comes  by  instinct; 
and  in  most  of  these  connections  by  marriage,  where 
the  very  fact  of  strangers  being  suddenly  brought 
together,  and  desired  to  like  one  another,  obstinate- 
ly inclines  them  the  other  way,  this  love  and  trust, 
if  long  in  coming,  frequently  never  comes  at  all. 
Very  civil  may  be  the  outward  relations  of  the  par- 
ties, but  heart-warmth  is  not  there.  It  is  always 
"my  husband's  family" — not  "my  family;"  my 
"daughter's  husband"  or  ".my  son's  wife" — never 
"my  son"  and  umy  daughter."  The  loving  patri- 
archial  union,  which  both  sides,  elder  and  younger, 
should  always  strive  to  attain,  becomes  first  doubt- 
ful, then  hopeless,  then  impossible. 

One  secret,  original  cause  of  this  is  the  faculty 
most  people  have  of  seeing  their  rights  a  great  deal 
clearer  than  their  duties.  About  these  "rights" 
there  are  always  clouds  rising,  and  one  of  the  prom- 
inent causes  of  disunion  is  often  that  which  ought 
to  be  the  very  bond  of  union — the  grandchildren. 

Now,  if  a  woman  has  a  right  on  earth,  it  certainly 
is  to  the  management  of  her  own  children.  She 
would  not  be  half  a  woman  if  in  that  matter  she 
submitted  to  any  body's  advice  or  opinion  contrary 


224  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

to  her  own ;  or  if  in  all  things  concerning  that  un- 
doubted possession,  "my  baby,"  she  were  not  as 
fierce  as  a  tigress,  and  as  hard  as  a  rock.  One  could 
forgive  her  any  rebellion,  any  indignation  at  un- 
warrantable interference  from  her  mother-in-law,  or 
even  her  own  mother.  And  with  justice;  for  if 
she  have  any  common  sense  at  all,  she  will  prob- 
ably have  in  many  things  as  clear  practical  j  udg- 
ment  as  grandmamma,  whose  wisdom  belongs  to  a 
past  generation,  and  whose  memory  may  not  be 
quite  accurate  as  to  the  days  when  she  was  young. 
Yet  the  daughter-in-law  who  has  any  right  feeling 
will  always  listen  patiently,  and  be  grateful  and 
yielding  to  the  utmost  of  her  power.  Nay,  there 
will  spring  up  a  new  sympathy  between  her  and 
the  old  lady,  to  whom  every  new  baby-face  may 
bring  back  a  whole  tide  of  long-slumbering  recol- 
lections— children  grown  up  and  gone  away,  chil- 
dren undutiful  or  estranged  —  or,  lastly,  little  chil- 
dren's graves.  The  most  irritable  and  trying  of 
mothers-in-law  is  a  sight  venerable  and  touching, 
as  she  sits  with  "the  baby'7  across  her  knees,  gos- 
siping about  "our  children"  of  forty  years  ago. 

But,  speaking  of  rights,  the  wife  has  limits  even 
to  hers.  Surely  the  "  primal  elder  curse"  must  rest 
upon  the  woman  who  voluntarily  or  thoughtlessly 
tries  to  sow  division  between  her  husband  and  his 
own  flesh  and  blood — above  all,  between  him  and 
his  mother.  And,  putting  aside  the  sin  of  it,  what 


ABOUT   MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  225 

a  poor,  jealous  coward  must  she  be — how  weak  in 
her  own  love,  how  distrustful  of  his,  who  fears  lest 
any  influence  under  heaven — least  of  all  those  holy, 
natural  ties  which  are  formed  by  heaven — should 
come  between  herself  and  the  man  who  has  chosen 
her  for  his  wife — his  very  other  self;  her  whom,  if 
he  be  at  all  a  good  man,  he  never  will  think  of  com- 
paring or  making  a  rival  with  any  other,  because 
she  is  not  another — she  is  himself. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  man  who,  however  low  in 
station  or  personally  distasteful  to  him  may  be  his 
wife's  relations,  tries  to  wean  her  from  them,  exact- 
ing for  himself  her  sole  and  particular  devotion,  to 
the  breaking  of  the  secondary  bonds,  of  which  the 
higher  bond  ought  to  make  both  husband  and  wife 
only  more  tenacious  and  more  tender — such  a  one 
is  grieviously  to  blame.  People  may  laugh  at  and 
sympathize  with  the  unfortunate  victim  of  "  Moth- 
er-in-law Spike,"  but  he  is  certainly  a  more  respect- 
able personage  than  the  "  gentleman"  who,  driving 
in  his  carriage  with  his  wife  and  son,  passes  an  old 
woman — the  boy's  very  own  grandmother,  crawl- 
ing wearily  along  the  hot,  dusty  road — passes  her 
without  recognition.  Or  the  "  lady1'  who,  having 
done  as  is  not  rare  in  this  commercial  country,  mar- 
ried a  man  who  has  "  made  himself,"  henceforward 
treats  the  humble  mother  that  bore  him,  or  the  fa- 
ther whose  poor  name  he  has  ennobled,  with  digni- 
fied disdain,  instead  of  feeling  that  every  thing  and 
K2 


226  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

every  body  belonging  to  him  ought  to  be  honored, 
if  only  because  they  belong  to  him. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  subversive  of  the  theories  of 
novelists,  that  mothers-in-law  of  sons  generally  "get 
on"  with  them  far  better  than  with  their  daughters- 
in-law.  While  it  is  no  unfrequent  thing  to  see  in- 
stances of  a  man's  being  kindly,  even  affectionately 
attached  to  his  wife's  mother,  and  she  to  him,  al- 
most any  of  us  could  count  on  our  fingers  the  cases 
we  know  where  a  daughter-in-law  is  really  a  daugh- 
ter to  her  parents  by  marriage.  Some  cause  for 
this  is  the  difference  of  sex,  no  man  and  woman  in 
any  relation  of  life,  except  the  conjugal  one,  being 
ever  thrown  together  so  wholly  and  so  intimately 
as  to  discover  one  another's  weak  points  in  the  man- 
ner women  do.  Consequently,  one  rarely  hears  of 
a  lady  being  at  daggers-drawing  with  her  father-in- 
law.  She  is  usually  on  the  civilest,  friendliest  terms 
with  him,  and  he  often  takes  in  her  a  pride  and 
pleasure  truly  paternal.  For  truly,  women  who  are 
charming  to  men  are  common  enough ;  a  far  safer 
test  of  true  beauty  of  character  is  it  that  a  woman 
should  be  admired  and  loved  by  women.  It  would 
save  half  the  family  squabbles  of  a  generation  if 
the  young  wives  would  bestow  a  modicum  of  the 
pains  they  once  took  to  please  their  lovers  in  trying 
to  be  attractive  to  their  mothers-iri-law. 

But  the  husband  himself  has  often  much  to  an- 
swer for.     When,  with  the  blindness  and  selfish 


ABOUT   MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  227 

pride  of  possession  natural  to  a  man — and  a  man  in 
love — he  brings  his  new  idol  into  his  old  home,  and 
expects  all  the  family  to  fall  down  and  worship  her, 
why,  they  naturally  object  to  so  doing.  They  can 
not  be  expected  to  see  her  with  his  eyes.  They 
may  think  her  a  very  nice  girl,  a  very  likeable  girl, 
and,  if  left  alone,  would  probably  become  extremely 
fond  of  her  in  time,  in  a  rational  way ;  but  every 
instinctive  obstinacy  of  human  nature  revolts  from 
compelled  adoration.  Heaven  forbid  that  a  man 
should  not  love,  honor,  and  cherish  his  own  wife, 
and  take  her  part  against  all  assaulters,  if  needful, 
be  they  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood  ;  but  one  of  the 
greatest  injuries  a  man  can  possibly  do  his  wife  is 
to  be  always  exacting  for  her  more  love  than  she 
has  had  time  to  win — always  showing  her  forth  as 
a  picture  of  perfection,  while  common  eyes  see  her 
only  as  an  ordinary  woman,  blessed  with  the  vir- 
tues and  faults  which  women  can  so  quickly  detect 
in  one  another.  The  kindest,  wisest,  most  dignified 
course  for  any  young  husband  on  bringing  his  wife 
home  is  to  leave  her  there,  trusting  her  to  make  her 
own  way,  and  take  her  own  rightful  position  by 
her  own  honorable  deserts. 

A  man  has  ordinarily  little  time  or  inclination  to 
quarrel  with  his  mother-in-law.  The  thousand  little 
irritations  constantly  occurring  between  women  who 
do  not  suit  one  another,  yet  are  trying  hard  to  keep 
on  good  terms  for  appearance7  or  duty's  sake,  are 


228  STUDIES  FKOM  LIFE. 

ridiculous  trifles  which  he  can  not  understand  at  all. 
Better  he  should  not.  Better  the  wife  should  keep 
her  little  troubles  to  herself,  and  be  thankful  that 
on  his  side  he  is  well  disposed  to  be  tolerant  toward 
her  mother.  Grandmamma,  on  her  part,  not  unfre- 
quently  likes  her  son-in-law  extremely,  asks  his  ad- 
vice, is  proud  of  his  success  in  life ;  and  though 
thinking,  of  course,  that  he  is  not  quite  good  enough 
for  her  darling  child — as  indeed  the  Angel  Gabriel 
and  the  Admirable  Crichton  rolled  into  one  scarcely 
would  have  been — still  she  has  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  respect  for  him,  and  of  kindly  feeling 
toward  him.  If  she  has  not,  and  shows  her  want 
of  it,  she  is  the  unkindest,  most  dangerous  mother 
that  any  married  daughter  can  be  afflicted  with. 
If  by  word  or  insinuation  she  tries  to  divide  those 
whom  God  has  joined  together,  if  she  is  so  mad  as 
to  believe  she  shall  benefit  her  daughter  by  degrad- 
ing her  daughter's  husband,  truly  this  mother-in- 
law,  cherishing  a  dislike  upon  unjust  grounds,  de- 
serves all  retribution  that  may — nay,  assuredly  will 
reach  her.  Even  for  just  cause,  such  an  antipathy 
is  a  fatal  thing. 

And  here  we  come  to  one  of  the  most  painful 
phases  of  this  subject,  one  of  the  sharpest  agonies 
that  woman's  nature  can  endure — that  is,  when  a 
mother-in-law  has  to  see  her  child,  son  or  daughter, 
unworthily  mated,  forced  to  wear  out  life,  to  die  a 
slow  daily  death,  in  the  despair  of  that  greatest 
curse  upon  earth,  an  ill-assorted  marriage. 


ABOUT   MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  229 

One  can  conceive,  in  such  a  case,  the  maternal 
heart  being  stung  into  direst  hatred  against  the 
cause  of  such  misery — nay,  bursting  at  times  into 
the  rage  of  a  wild  beast  compelled  to  witness  the 
torture  of  its  young.  This  mother-passion,  as  help- 
less as  hopeless,  must  be,  of  its  kind,  distinct  from 
any  other  human  wretchedness ;  and  under  its  goad- 
ing almost  any  outbreak  of  indignation  or  abhor- 
rence would  be  comprehensible — nay,  pardonable. 
To  have  to  sit  still,  and  see  a  heartless  woman  tor- 
menting the  life  out  of  one's  own  beloved  son,  for 
whom  nothing  was  too  noble  and  precious,  or  a  bru- 
tal husband  breaking  the  heart  of  a  tender  daugh- 
ter, to  whom,  ere  her  marriage,  no  living  creature 
ever  said  a  harsh  or  unkind  word,  this  must  be  ter- 
rible indeed  to  bear.  And  yet  it  has  to  be  borne 
again  and  again.  God  comfort  these  unhappy 
mothers-in-law!  Their  sufferings  are  sharp  enough 
to  make  amends  for  the  wickedness  of  a  hundred 
Mrs.  Mackenzies. 

Yet,  until  the  last  limit,  the  only  safe  course  for 
them  is  to  endure,  and  help  their  children  to  endure. 
Cases  do  arise,  and  a  wise  Legislature  has  lately  pro- 
vided for  them,  when  righteousness  itself  demands 
the  dissolution  of  an  unrighteous  marriage;  when 
a  man  is  justified  before  heaven  and  earth  in  put- 
ting away  his  wife ;  and  the  counsel,  "  Let  not  the 
wife  depart  from  her  husband,"  is  rendered  nuga- 
tory by  circumstances  which  entail  sacrifices  greater 


230  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

than  any  woman  has  a  right  to  make,  even  to  her 
husband.  Every  one  must  have  known  such  in- 
stances, where  the  law  of  divorce  becomes  as  sacred 
and  necessary  as  that  of  marriage.  But  such  mel- 
ancholy unions  are,  thank  God,  the  exception,  not 
the  rule,  in  this  our  land,  and  form  no  justification 
for  the  machinations  of  bad  mothers-in-law.  There- 
fore let  them,  in  all  minor  troubles,  practice  pa- 
tience, courage,  hope.  If,  according  to  the  apostle 
(who,  though  himself  unmarried,  wrote  on  this  sub- 
ject with  that  wide,  calm  observation  which  some- 
times seizes  on  a  truth  more  clearly  than  does  one- 
sided experience),  the  unbelieving  husband  may  be 
converted  by  the  believing  wife,  and  vice  versa,  who 
knows  but  that  a  harsh  husband,  a  neglectful  wife, 
may  sometimes  be  won  over  to  better  things  by  the 
quiet  dignity,  the  forbearance,  the  unceasing  loving- 
kindness  of  a  good,  generous  mother-in-law? 

Let  us  take  her  in  one  last  phase  in  her  long  life 
— it  must  have  been  a  sufficiently  long  one — and 
these  few  words  concerning  her  are  ended. 

There  arrives  a  season  when  the  sharpest,  most 
intolerable  mother-in-law  becomes  harmless ;  when 
a  chair  by  the  fireside,  or  a  bedridden  station  in 
some  far-away  room  constitutes  the  sole  dominion 
from  which  she  can  exercise  even  the  show  of  rule 
or  interference.  Thence,  the  only  change  probable 
or  desirable  will  be  to  a  narrower  pillow,  where  the 
gray  head  is  laid  down  in  peace,  and  all  the  acerbi- 


ABOUT  MOTHERS-IN-LAW.  231 

ties,  infirmities,  or  fatuities  of  old  age  are  buried 
tenderly  out  of  sight,  under  the  green  turf  that  cov- 
ers "  dear  grandmamma." 

Then,  and  afterward,  blessed  are  those  sons  and 
daughters,  by  blood  or  marriage,  who,  during  her 
lifetime,  so  acted  toward  her  that  her  death  lays 
upon  them  no  burden  of  bitter  remembrance ;  and 
blessed  is  she  who,  living,  lived  so  that  her  memory 
is  hallowed  by  all  her  children  alike,  and  who  is 
remembered  by  them  only  as  "mother" — never, 
even  in  name,  as  "  mother-in-law." 


232  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 


©ur  Co0t  (Hat 

THE  besoin  d"1  aimer  is  perhaps  one  of  the  least 
mean  of  human  weaknesses.  Many  are  the  troubles 
it  causes  to  all  of  us,  and  yet  we  would  fain  not 
quite  get  rid  of  it,  and  are,  on  the  whole,  rather 
more  respectable  people  with  it  than  without  it. 
Even  for  the  unfortunate  man  to  whom  even  his 
wife  is  only 

"A  little  better  than  his  dog,  a  little  dearer  than  his  horse," 

or  the  forlorn  old  maid  who,  dying  without  heirs, 
endows  her  twelve  parrots  with  enough  to  make 
the  fortune  of  more  than  one  poor  family,  it  is  at 
least  a  degree  better  to  be  fond  of  something,  be  it 
only  a  brute  beast,  than  nothing.  And  many  a 
brute  beast  is  capable  of  being  raised,  by  education, 
attention,  and  kindness,  to  an  affectionate  rationali- 
ty, which  makes  it  quite  as  pleasant  company  as, 
alas !  a  great  many  human  beings. 

This  is  not  meant  to  be  an  essay  in  defense  of 
pets,  often  most  intolerable  nuisances  to  every  body 
but  the  possessor — pet  dogs  (perhaps  the  most  un- 
bearable), pet  birds,  fowls,  rabbits,  monkeys,  and  the 
long  line  of  domesticated  quadrupeds  and  bipeds, 


OUR  LOST  CAT.  233 

down  to  the  featherless  biped,  the  child-pet,  or  the 
charity-pet,  whose  lot  is  the  most  cruel-kind  of  any. 
I  am  only  going  to  tell  a  very  plain  and  simple 
story  about  a  lost  pet  of  ours,  who  cost  us  the  usual 
amount  of  pain  which  all  who  are  guilty  of  the 
afore-named  weakness  of  being  fond  of  something 
must  consent  to  endure. 

We — that  is,  myself  and  the  sharer  in  my  loss — 
are  not  universally  benevolent.  We  do  not  take  to 
our  bosoms  every  walking,  hopping,  and  creeping 
thing.  We  are  eclectic  in  our  tastes,  and  though 
we  hope  we  would  treat  civilly  and  kindly  every 
creature  alive,  still  we  have  never  had  any  particu- 
lar interest  in  more  than  one  sort  of  pets,  and  that 
is  cats. 

I  hope  the  gentle  reader  will  not  here  immedi- 
ately lay  down  this  book  in  a  mood  of  calm  con- 
tempt ;  or,  if  he  has  done  so,  may  I  respectfully  re- 
quest him  to  take  it  up  again  ?  I  assure  him  that 
he  shall  meet  with  nothing  insanely  extravagant  or 
sentimentally  maudlin ;  that  his  prej  udices  will  be 
treated  with  deference,  and  himself  regarded  as  a 
person  who  is  simply  mistaken — nothing  more. 
He  never  could  have  had  a  pet  cat. 

We  have  had — many ;  the  fact  that  a  cat's  nine 
lives  do  not  equal  one  human  being's  necessitating 
that  plural,  otherwise  we  would  have  kept  faithful 
to  this  day  unto  our  first  favorite,  uMuff,"  fallen  in 
with  at  the  age  of  three,  or  his  successor,  our  veri- 


234  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

table  first  love,  Eose — Bose,  the  flower  of  cats,  who 
bloomed  in  our  household  for  ten  years.  My  heart 
softens  as  I  recall  her.  Her  memory  is  green  still ; 
and  I  may  yet,  for  a  newer  generation,  write  a  Biog- 
raphy of  our  Rose. 

Since  her  day  we  have  both  had  several  pets 
en  passant — confiding  cats  who  followed  us  home 
through  London  streets,  as  they  always  have  a  trick 
of  doing ;  antipodean  cats,  who,  changing  their  na- 
tures, would  go  shooting  with  their  master  in  the 
forests,  "point"  the  game,  and  bring  it  to  him  with 
an  unfailing  faithfulness ;  sea-borne  cats,  cherished 
during  half  a  voyage,  and  then  missed — after  which 
rumored  to  have  been  seen  floating  away,  helplessly 
mewing,  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile  astern.  Yet  we 
have  had  but  one  pet  who  at  all  supplied  the  place 
of  the  never -forgotten  Eose.  Of  him  I  am  now 
about  to  tell. 

He  was  the  first-born  of  his  mother,  but  in  no 
wise  like  her,  she  being  the  ugliest,  stupidest,  and 
most  untender  of  feline  animals.  Her  very  kit- 
tens she  would  carry  into  damp  corners  and  under 
grates,  and  there  forsake  them,  to  be  trodden  to 
death  or  shoveled  unwittingly  on  to  the  back  of 
the  fire;  nay,  with  some  she  is  reported  to  have 
done  as  the  New  Zealand  husband  did  with  the 
wife  whom  he  couldn't  keep  and  was  too  fond  of 
to  part  with — she  is  reported  to  have  eaten  them. 
Peace  to  her  manes  !  Nothing  in  her  life  ever  be- 
came her  like  the  leaving  of  it. 


OUR  LOST  CAT.  235 

But  her  son  was  quite  a  different  character.  His 
beauty  was  his  least  merit.  In  kittenhood  he  had 
such  winning  ways  that  he  was  continually  asked 
to  tea  in  the  parlor;  cradled  in  apron  pockets, 
gowns,  and  shirt-fronts ;  taught  to  walk  on  the  ta- 
ble, and  educated  with  a  care  and  distinction  which 
could  not  but  make  him  the  most  gentlemanly  of 
cats.  And  such  he  grew.  There  was  a  conscious 
"  fine-young-fellow"ism  in  the  very  arch  of  his  back 
and  curve  of  his  handsome  tail.  His  tail,  we  al- 
ways said,  was  his  weak  point — a  pardonable  van- 
ity. He  seemed  to  take  a  conscious  pride  in  it,  as  a 
fashionable  Antinous  might  in  his  curls,  his  hands, 
or  his  whiskers.  For  his  morals,  they  were  as  unex- 
ceptionable as  his  appearance.  He  was  rarely  heard 
to  mew,  even  for  his  dinner  ;  and  as  for  theft,  I  re- 
member the  sublime  indignation  of  his  first  friend 
and  protector,  the  cook,  when  one  day  I  suggested 
shutting  the  pantry-door:  "He  steal!  He  never 
would  think  of  such  a  thing!" 

Have  I  sufficiently  indicated  his  mental  and  moral 
perfections?  Add  to  these  a  social  and  affectionate 
disposition,  remarkable  even  in  parlor-educated  cats, 
and  a  general  suavity  of  manner  which  made  him 
considerate  to  the  dog,  and  patronizingly  indifferent 
to  the  fowls,  and  what  more  need  be  said  of  him 
except  his  name  ?  This  can  not  be  revealed ;  such 
publicity  might  wound  his  delicate  sensitiveness. 
In  this  article  he  must  only  be  known  as  "Lo." 


236  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

No  bad  name  either:  there  was  once  a  Saint  Lo,  of 
knightly  memory:  so  "Lo"  is  well  suited  to  desig- 
nate the  most  chivalrous  of  cats. 

He  grew  up  to  maturity  in  the  house  where  he 
was  born.  For  three  years  his  familiar  apple-tree, 
on  which  he  tried  his  youthful  claws,  blossomed 
and  bore  ;  for  three  years  the  sparrows  in  the  thorn 
and  willow  provided  him  with  a  little  useful  recre- 
ation— no  worse,  certainly,  than  deer-stalking  and 
hare-hunting ;  and  then  his  destiny  darkened.  We 
were  about  to  flit — a  long  flitting  of  some  hundred 
miles  and  more ;  and  of  all  the  questions  involved 
therein,  one  of  the  most  difficult  was,  What  was  to 
be  done  with  Lo  ?  We  could  not  leave  him ;  we 
did  not  like  to  give  him  away ;  and  yet  we  feared 
that  the  cry,  "A  new  home — who'll  follow?"  would 
never  be  responded  to  by  him.  The  most  frequent 
suggestion  was  to  take  his  photograph,  and  then 
give  him  a  little  dose  of  the  "fixing"  material, 
which  would  "  fix"  both  him  and  his  likeness  for- 
ever in  this  world,  and  save  all  farther  trouble. 
But  this  idea  was  not  likely  to  be  carried  out. 

"Where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way."  I  made 
up  my  mind  concerning  him. 

On  the  day  of  the  flitting — when  he  was  lying 
peacefully  and  unconsciously  on  his  native  kitchen 
hearth,  which  he  was  never  more  to  behold — I  car- 
ried him,  purring  and  fondling  me,  to  an  empty 
room  up  stairs,  and  locked  him  in,  together  with  a 


OUR  LOST  CAT,  237 

hamper  and  dinner.  He  did  not  quite  understand 
the  proceeding,  but  accommodated  himself  to  cir- 
cumstances, and  lay  down  to  sleep  in  the  sunshine. 
There,  ignorant  of  the  black  future,  he  passed  his 
day.  At  nightfall  I  packed  him  and  sewed  him  up, 
still  purring,  in  the  hamper  of  his  woes.  From 
that  hour  there  was  no  more  peace  for  our  unfor- 
tunate Lo. 

He,  with  myself,  was  taken  in  for  a  week  by  a 
benevolent  family  who  kept  a  bird.  This  necessi- 
tated Lo's  solitary  confinement  in  a  wash-house. 
Thither,  almost  exanimate  from  fright — I  believe 
he  even  fainted  in  my  arms — was  he  conveyed; 
and  there,  though  visited,  fed,  and  condoled  with, 
he  remained  in  a  state  of  'mind  and  body  of  inde- 
scribable wretchedness,  sleeping  in  the  copper,  and 
at  the  least  noise  retiring  for  refuge  up  the  chimney. 
His  appearance,  when  being  repacked  for  his  sec- 
ond journey,  was  that  of  a  disconsolate,  half-idiotic 
sweep. 

Through  all  the  roar  of  London,  on  the  top  of 
cab  or  omnibus,  was  borne  the  luckless  cat.  What 
could  he  have  thought  of  the  great  Babel — he  who, 
among  suburban  gardens  and  fields,  had  passed  his 
peaceful  days  ?  He  never  uttered  a  sound ;  not 
even  when,  finding  no  boy  at  hand,  I  took  up  his 
hamper  myself,  and  carried  it  the  length  of  a  square, 
conversing  with  him  meantime,  till  the  sight  of  a 
passer-by  turning  round  reminded  me  that  this 


238  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

might  possibly  convey  to  the  public  in  general  the 
impression  of  my  being  slightly  insane.  One  pause 
he  had  in  his  miseries — one  happy  evening  by  a 
charitable  kitchen  hearth,  and  then  he  was,  hamper 
and  all,  consigned  to  the  parcel- van  of  the  northern 
mail. 

"Please  take  care  of  it — it's  a  cat." 

"  A  what,  ma'am?"  asked  the  magnificent-look< 
ing  guard. 

"  A  cat — a  live  cat." 

He  laughed.  "  Oh  yes,  ma'am — all  right."  And 
so  I  bade  poor  Lo  a  temporary  farewell. 

Letters  communicated  his  well-being.  He  had 
arrived  at  home — had  recovered  from  his  first 
paroxysms  of  terror — had  even  begun  to  wash 
himself  and  appear  like  a  cat  of  civilized  mien. 
There  was  hope  that  I  should  find  him  sitting  hap- 
pily on  the  hearth,  which,  we  are  weak  enough  to 
fancy,  never  looks  quite  comfortable  and  home-like 
without  a  cat.  But  hope  deceived.  My  first  ques- 
tion on  my  return,  "How  is  he?"  was  answered 
dolefully,  "He  has  run  away." 

Ay,  just  when  his  troubles  were  ended,  when  hie 
mistress  was  coming  home,  when  all  the  delights  of 
milk  and  cream,  sunshiny  lawns  to  sleep  on,  green 
trees  to  climb,  mice,  and — dare  I  say  it? — young' 
birds  to  eat,  were  opening  before  him,  he  ran  away ! 
I  returned  to  a  catless  fireside. 

Of  course,  every  search  was  made ;  a  reward  of- 


OUR  LOST   CAT.  239 

fered;  the  village  policeman  applied  to;  but  day 
after  day  passed,  and  no  sight  of  Lo.  Sometimes 
flying  rumors  reached  us  of  his  being  seen  in  gar- 
dens, or  scampering  across  fields,  or  sheltering  in 
some  stable  or  barn.  Once  the  policeman  paid  us 
a  special  visit,  stating  formally  his  knowledge  of 
his  whereabouts,  and  that  every  measure  should  be 
taken  for  his  recovery ;  but  even  the  professional 
skill,  worthy  of  being  exercised  on  some  distin- 
guished criminal,  failed  with  regard  to  our  cat. 
We  had  almost  given  him  up  for  lost. 

Now  one  ought  never  patiently  to  submit  to  any 
loss  till  all  possible  means  have  been  tried,  and  fail- 
ing,  have  proved  it  to  be  irremediable.  One  even- 
ing,  after  he  had  been  a  week  missing,  and  taking 
into  account  his  exceedingly  shy  and  timid  disposi- 
tion, the  strange  country  in  which  he  had  lost  him- 
self, and  his  utter  ignorance  of  ill  usage,  we  began 
to  relinquish  all  hope  of  his  return,  I  resolved  to  go 
in  search  of  the  cat  myself — a  scheme  about  as  wild 
as  starting  to  hunt  up  a  brother  in  Australia,  or  a 
friend  in  the  Far  West — a  sort  of  "  Evangeline"  ex- 
pedition. Yet  most  women,  reading  Longfellow's 
exquisite  poem,  must  feel  that  such  a  proceeding  as 
Evangeline's  would  be  perfectly  natural,  reasonable, 
and  probable,  under  similar  circumstances.  Who 
among  us  would  not  do  the  same  for  any  one  be- 
loved ?  Why  not  then,  in  a  small  way,  for  an  un« 
fortunate  cat  ? 


240  STUDIES   FEOM   LIFE. 

So,  after  tea,  I  went  out.  It  was  a  lovely  even- 
ing, with  hedges  just  budding,  and  thrushes  just 
beginning  to  pipe  out  that  peculiar  rich  note  which 
always  reminds  one  of  the  return  of  spring — an 
evening  when  one  enjoys,  and  likes  to  think  of  all 
those  belonging  to  one  as  enjoying,  the  renewal  of 
nature,  life,  and  hope.  I  did  not  like  to  think  of 
even  my  cat — my  poor  cat,  for  whom  was  no  after- 
life, no  immortal  and  eternal  spring — dying  in  a 
ditch,  or  starved,  beaten,  ill  used,  till  death  was  the 
kindest  hope  I  could  have  for  him.  I  almost  wish- 
ed I  had  taken  his  friend's  advice,  that  we  had  pho- 
tographed him,  and  "  fixed"  him,  safe  from  all  mor- 
tal care. 

At  the  nearest  house,  where  he  had  once  been 
seen,  and  where  I  had  inquired  the  day  before,  both 
the  civil  husband  and  pleasant-looking  wife  knew 
quite  well  "the  lady  who  had  lost  her  cat:"  they 
sympathized ;  and  I  felt  sure  that  if  he  appeared 
again  he  would  be  coaxed,  caught,  and  brought  safe 
home.  I  then  continued  rny  pilgrimage. 

Door  after  door  did  I  attack  with  the  stereotyped 
inquiry,  " Have  you  seen  a  strange  cat?  I  have 
lost  my  pet  cat,  which  I  brought  all  the  way  from 
London.  He  is  a  great  beauty,  gray,  with  a  partic- 
ularly fine  tail.  I  will  give  five  shillings  to  any 
body  who  brings  him  back ;  my  name  and  address 
are  so  and  so." 

This  brief  and  simple  formula  was  repeated,  witli 


OUR  LOST  CAT.  241 

slight  ad  libitum  variations,  from  house  to  house 
within  a  mile.  Once  I  ventured  to  address  a  milk- 
woman  :  with  no  result ;  she  was  a  stranger ;  and 
once  a  little  boy  playing  about  the  road,  whom  I 
afterward  heard  commenting  to  a  friend  in  this 
wise:  "I  say,  Jack,  that  lady's  hunting  after  a 
strange  cat.  He,  he,  he !  I  wouldn't  hunt  after  a 
strange  cat — would  you?" 

Equally  unsympathetic  was  an  elderly  gentle- 
man, the  owner  of  a  beautiful  house,  garden,  and 
conservatory,  and  who  came  most  politely  to  the 
door,  his  bonnie  little  granddaughter  holding  by 
his  hand.  He  had  a  fine  face,  long  silvery  hair, 
was  bland  and  amiable  of  demeanor,  reminding  me 
of  Mr.  Dickens's  "  Casby  the  Patriarch." 

u Madam,"  said  he,  after  hearing  my  tale,  "if 
feline  animals  are  allowed  to  inhabit  such  a  place, 
I  devoutly  wish  all  the  cats  in  this  world  were — in 
Paradise !  They  are  the  ruin  of  us  horticulturists. 
Do  not  regret  your  cat.  I  can  supply  you  out  of 
my  garden  with  any  number,  dead  or  alive." 

I  explained  that  mine  was  an  individual  pet. 

"  Then,  madam,  could  you  not  place  your  affec- 
tions upon  pets  more  worthy?"  and  he  stroked  the 
little  girl's  pretty  flaxen  hair.  "  I  am  sorry  to  wound 
your  feelings ;  but  there  have  been — and  I  should 
rather  regret  their  leaving — some  Birmingham  peo- 
ple in  this  neighborhood  who  make  a  trade  of  catch- 
ing and  skinning — cats." 
L 


242  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

I  turned  away  horrified,  yet  could  hardly  forbear 
a  smile ;  the  eccentric,  but,  I  firmly  believe,  well- 
meaning  old  gentleman  received  my  adieus,  and 
bowed  me  to  the  very  gate. 

Many  another  house  I  tried,  my  search  having 
one  result,  namely,  the  discovery  that  I  had  a  num- 
ber of  nice  neighbors — old  ladies,  neat  as  a  new 
pin ;  spruce  parlor-maids ;  kindly  mistresses,  mostly 
with  babies — such  an  abundance  of  civil  tongues, 
and  pleasant,  good-natured,  nay,  handsome  faces,  as 
might  well  be  satisfactory  to  a  new-comer  into  this 
country  place.  I  also  gained  one  consolation,  that 
it  was  the  safest  neighborhood  in  which  Lo  could 
possibly  have  been  lost,  since  all  the  good  folk 
seemed  personally  acquainted,  not  only  with  one 
another,  but  with  one  another's  cats.  Ours  might 
yet  turn  up,  or,  if  not,  might  find  an  asylum  in  the 
bosom  of  some  unknown  family,  who  would  console 
him  for  the  cruel  mistress  and  uncomprehended  mis- 
eries which  doubtless  had  unsettled  his  reason,  and 
driven  him  to  despairing  flight. 

So,  having  done  all  that  could  be  done,  I  was 
fain  to  turn  homeward 

"In  the  spring  twilight,  in  the  colored  twilight," 

never  seen  except  in  spring.  It  tinted  the  bare 
trees  and  brown  hedges,  throwing  over  the  whole 
sky  a  tender  light,  and  changing  the  shiny  bit  of 
far-away  western  sea  into  a  lake  of  glowing  roses. 
Wonderful  was  the  peace  over  all  animate  and  in- 


OUR  LOST   CAT.  243 

animate  nature,  as  it  lay,  waiting  in  faith  the  step- 
by-step  advance  of  another  unknown  year. 

Passing  the  lodge  of  the  big  house  of  the  village 
— an  open  door,  firelight,  and  children's  prattle,  in- 
spired me  with  one  last  vague  hope.  I  knocked. 

"  Have  you  seen/'  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  as  usual. 

No.  Yet  the  sight  disclosed  almost  atoned  for 
the  disappointment.  An  interior  such  as  only  an 
English  cottage  could  furnish;  a  cottager's  wife 
such  as  Morland  or  Gainsborough  would  have  de- 
lighted to  immortalize.  Her  face,  healthy,  fair,  and 
sweet — nay,  downright  beautiful,  was  reflected  feat- 
ure by  feature  in  two  other  little  faces — one  staring 
out  bravely  from  beside  mother,  the  other  half-hid- 
den in  her  gown.  The  latter  charming  little  face, 
which  no  persuasions  could  allure  from  its  shelter, 
was  itself  worth  the  whole  evening's  pilgrimage  to 
look  at ;  and  the  centre  picture,  half  twilight,  half 
firelight,  is  a  thing  to  be  set  down  in  memory  among 
passing  glimpses  of  unutterably  beautiful  fragments, 
which  remain  daguerreotyped  as  such  forever. 

This  episode,  with  the  rest,  amused  us  for  some 
time,  when,  coming  home,  we  talked  over  our 
chances  of  recovering  our  lost  pet,  conjecturing 
that  for  a  month  to  come  we  should  have  all  the 
stray  cats  of  the  neighborhood  brought  to  us  for 
recognition  except  the  right  one.  But  to  u  greet 
ower  spilt  milk"  is  not  our  custom.  So,  having 
done  our  best,  we  dismissed  the  subject. 


244  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

Next  day,  sitting  at  work,  I  heard  a  scuffle  in  the 
hall;  the  door  was  flung  joyfully  open: 

"  Ma'am,  there's  your  cat." 

It  was  indeed  Lo.  Gaunt,  scared,  dirty ;  fierce 
with  hunger,  and  half  wild  with  fright,  the  poor 
runaway  was  brought  home  to  his  mistress's  arms. 

After  the  immemorial  fashion,  I  drop  a  veil  over 
the  pathetic  scene  which  followed. 

«&         x         *         *         #         *         x 

He  now  lies  fast  asleep  at  my  feet.  He  has 
made  a  clean  breast  of  it — that  is  to  say,  he  has 
resumed  his  usual  costume  of  white  shirt-front  and 
white  stockings,  which  contributes  so  largely  to 
his  gentlemanly  appearance.  He  has  also  gradual- 
ly lost  his  scared  look,  and  is  coming  into  his  right 
mind.  A  few  minutes  since  he  was  walking  over 
my  desk,  arching  his  poor  thin  back  in  the  ancient 
fashion,  and  sweeping  my  face  with  his  sadly  di- 
minished but  still  inimitable  tail ;  putting  his  paws 
on  my  shoulders,  and  making  frantic  efforts  at  an 
affectionate  salutation — had  I  not  a  trifling  objec- 
tion to  that  ceremony. 

Surely,  after  all  this  bitter  experience,  he  will 
recognize  his  truest  friends — true  even  in  their  un* 
kindness ;  will  believe  in  his  new  quarters  as  home, 
and  play  the  prodigal  no  more. 

Poor  Lo !  I  hope  it  is  not  applying  profanely 
"  the  noblest  sentiments  of  the  human  heart"  if, 
as  he  lies  there,  snugly  and  safely,  I  involuntarily 


OUR  LOST  CAT.  245 

hum  to  myself  a  verse  out  of  The  ClerUs  Two,  Sons 
of  Owsenford: 

"The  hallow  days  o' Yule  were  come, 

And  the  nichts  were  lang  and  mirk, 
When  in  there  cam  her  ain  twa  sons, 
Wi'  their  hats  made  o'  the  birk. 

"Blaw  up  the  fire  now,  maidens  mine, 

Bring  water  frae  the  well : 
For  a'  my  house  sail  feast  this  nicht, 
Since  my  twa  sons  are  well. 

"And  she  has  gane  and  made  their  bed, 

She's  made  it  saft  and  fine, 
And  she's  happit  them  in  her  gay  mantil, 
Because  they  were  her  ain." 

(Bless  us,  what  would  "  Mr.  Casby"  say  ?) 

I  here  end  rny  story.  For,  since  fortune  is  fickle, 
and  affection  often  vain,  better  end  it  now;  lest,  as 
Madame  Cottin  says  in  the  final  sentence  of  her 
Exiles  of  Siberia,  "  Did  I  continue  this  history,  I 
might  have  to  chronicle  a  new  misfortune." 


246  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 


Uabe0  tn  tlje  tUoob — 

WHICH  was  the  title  jocularly  given  in  our  house- 
hold to  an  interesting  young  family,  reared  this 
summer  in  a  hole  in  the  trunk  of  a  venerable  ap- 
ple-tree at  the  corner  of  the  garden.  Children, 
shall  I  tell  you  their  history,  "  beginning  at  the 
very  beginning,"  which  you  know  you  like? 

It  was  toward  the  end  of  May,  and  our  garden 
was  becoming  a  perfect  aviary.  It  is  a  very  old- 
fashioned  garden,  stocked  with  ancient  fruit-trees : 

"Apple  and  pear,  and  plum  and  cherry, 
Or  any  thing  else  to  make  us  merry," 

as  many  a  bird  sang,  or  meant  to  sing  in  bird  lan- 
guage, with  luxuriant  undergrowth  of  currants, 
gooseberries,  raspberries,  running  almost  wild.  In 
this  paradise  are  admitted  neither  guns,  nor  traps, 
nor  bird-nesting  boys ;  so  we  presume  it  is  a  region 
well-known  to  all  our  feathered  neighbors,  and  that 
they  mention  it  to  one  another  privately — under 
the  rose,  or  the  hawthorn-bush — as  "a  most  desir- 
able place  for  house-building." 

We  had  concerts  gratis  all  day  over,  mingled 
with  chirpings  and  squabblings  among  the  spar- 
rows, the  most  quarrelsome  birds  alive ;  and  a  few 


MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD.        247 

inexplicable  "rows"  of  a  general  kind,  after  which 
a  cuckoo  would  be  seen  flying,  in  her  lazy,  heavy 
way,  from  the  scene  of  dispute,  pursued  by  a  great 
clamor  of  lesser  birds.  Mrs.  C.,  however,  seemed 
indifferent  to  public  opinion;  would  settle  herself 
on  a  tree  in  the  field,  and  indulge  us  with  her  soft, 
plaintive  "Cuck-oo!  Cuck-oo!"  till  she  was  tired. 

Nest-building  was  at  its  height — namely,  the  tree- 
tops.  The  most  important  mansion  was  owned  by 
a  pair  of  anonymous  birds — I  believe  of  the  thrush 
species,  though  they  did  not  sing.  They  had  gone 
about  their  domestic  affairs  so  silently  that  the  fam- 
ily were  nearly  fledged  before  the  nest  was  discov- 
ered. Afterward,  for  days,  they  gave  me  no  little 
disquietude.  I  used  to  be  disturbed  at  inconvenient 
seasons  from  work  or  talk  by  the  misery  of  these 
big  ungainly  birds — they  were  nearly  as  large  as 
pigeons — which  kept  flying  franticly  about  the  gar- 
den, and  screeching  discordantly,  all  because  a  curi- 
ous but  perfectly  well-intentioned  lad  was  peering 
into  their  nest.  If  my  pet  cat  happened  to  lie  in 
sleepiest  innocence  on  the  parlor  window-sill,  these 
indignant  parents  would  swoop  fiercely  past  him 
close  enough  to  have  pecked  his  eyes  out,  and  sit 
screeching  at  him  from  the  neighboring  tree.  He 
never  took  any  notice ;  but*  since  feline  nature  is 
weak,  especially  on  the  subject  of  birds,  from  the 
day  that  the  nest  was  vacated,  and  more  than  one 
newly-fledged  youngster  was  seen  hopping  awk< 


248  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

wardly  about  under  the  gooseberry -bushes,  I  was 
kept  in  mortal  fear  lest  my  cat  should  walk  in  at 
the  window  with  a  young  thrush  in  his  mouth. 
No  such  disaster  happened ;  yet  I  confess  that  when 
the  thrush  family  finally  disappeared  it  was  a  great 
relief  to  my  mind. 

My  next  friends  were  a  pair  of  torn-tits,  which 
took  possession  of  a  crack  in  the  wall  underneath 
my  bedroom  window.  Their  privacy  was  extreme. 
It  was  a  mystery  how  they  contrived  to  creep  in 
and  out  of  a  hole  apparently  not  big  enough  to  ad- 
mit a  large  blue-bottle  fly ;  and  their  little  family 
must  have  been  reared  in  very  cramped  lodgings. 
Nobody  ever  saw  the  young  ones,  for  it  would  be 
impossible  to  get  at  them.  Yet  it  was  pleasant  of 
a  morning  to  watch  the  old  birds  flying  to  and  fro, 
hanging  a  moment  outside  of  the  crack,  and  then 
popping  in.  They  were  very  pretty  birds,  the 
papa  especially — a  most  natty  little  fellow,  delicate- 
ly shaped,  with  a  glossy  blue-black  head.  After 
feeding-time  was  over,  he  used  to  go  and  sit  on  the 
nearest  tree,  in  sight  of  his  domestic  establishment, 
brushing  up  his  feathers,  and  singing  "  tit,  tit,  tit," 
the  utmost  he  could  do.  When  at  last  this  worthy 
little  couple  vanished — children  and  all — I  rather 
missed  them  from  the  crack  in  the  wall. 

But  of  all  my  garden  families,  the  one  most  cared 
for  was  that  which  I  have  to:day  lost — rny  babes  in 
the  wood.  Let  me  resume  their  history. 


MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD.        249 

It  was  about  the  end  of  May,  when,  in  my  daily 
walk  before  breakfast — which  you  will  find  is  the 
very  best  hour  for  observing  birds  or  any  thing 
else  in  nature — I  found  that,  whenever  I  passed  a 
particular  corner,  I  always  startled  some  large  bird, 
which  flew  away  in  alarm.  At  last  I  saw  it,  beak, 
head,  and  all,  emerging  from  a  hole  in  a  half-decayed 
apple-tree.  It  was  a  blackbird. 

"  So,  my  friend,"  said  I,  "  you  are  evidently  bent 
on  settling — a  very  laudable  proceeding — and  you 
shall  not  be  disturbed." 

Therefore,  though  I  passed  the  tree  twenty  times 
a  day,  and  each  time  out  flew  a  bird,  for  many  days 
I  generously  abstained  from  taking  any  notice  of 
the  busy  little  house-builders.  At  last,  after  watch- 
ing one  of  them  scramble  out  of  the  hole — the  hen- 
bird  probably,  as  she  was  large,  clumsy,  and  brown- 
ish (it  really  is  hard  that  the  female  of  most  birds 
should  generally  be  so  much  less  good-looking  than 
the  male),  I  ventured  to  look  in.  There,  with  some 
difficulty,  I  saw,  a  foot  or  more  deep  in  the  hollow 
tree,  four  bluish  eggs. 

Considering  them  now  fairly  settled  in  house- 
keeping, I  took  every  opportunity  that  their  shy- 
ness allowed  of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  new- 
comers. Soon  I  knew  them  well  by  sight,  and 
they  certainly  had  a  fair  chance  of  reciprocating 
the  compliment.  Gradually  they  showed  less  fear  ; 
and  though  that  peculiar  cry,  half  twitter,  half 
L2 


250  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

screech,  which  seemed  used  as  a  signal  of  alarm 
between  the  parents,  was  still  uttered,  it  was  not  in 
that  shrill,  pitiful  anguish  which  makes  one  feel 
that 

"To  rob  a  poor  bird  of  its  young,"  < 

or  even  to  make  it  apprehensive  on  the  point,  al- 
most transforms  one,  in  one's  own  conscience,  to  an 
ogre  killing  a  baby. 

The  old  birds  were  a  goodly  pair.  Mr.  B.,  as  I 
named  him,  was  an  uncommonly  handsome  little 
gentleman — jet  black,  with  the  slenderest  figure, 
the  yellowest  bill,  the  brightest  eyes ;  quite  a  beau 
among  blackbirds.  But,  with  all  his  beauty,  he 
was  the  most  attentive  of  husbands,  and  the  most 
cheerful  and  musical.  He  had  great  richness  and 
variety  of  song,  made  distinct  turns  and  trills — nay, 
I  once  heard  him  execute  a  distinct  shake  on  two 
notes.  He  never  tired  of  singing.  Lying  awake 
one  night,  I  heard  him  begin  with  the  dawn,  loud 
as  ever ;  and  in  showery  weather  his  exuberant 
carols  lasted  all  day  long. 

But  the  treat  of  treats  was  to  watch  him  perched 
on  the  topmost  spray  of  a  poplar,  not  yet  fully  in 
leaf^  so  that  his  delicate  shape  was  clearly  discern- 
ible against  the  sky,  and  listen  to  him  in  the  still 
June  evening  singing  to  his  wife  and  family  a  song 
that  almost  brought  the  tears  into  one's  eyes  to 
think  there  should  be  such  a  happy  creature  in  the 
world. 


MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD.        251 

Meantime  the  world  jogged  on  as  it  will,,  and  all 
sorts  of  things  were  week  after  week  happening  to 
every  body  in  it,  while  peaceful  in  his  garden, 
which  no  doubt  he  looked  upon  as  his  own  person- 
al property,  currants,  raspberry -bushes,  and  all, 

"That  blithe  and  indefatigable  bird, 
Still  his  redundant  song  of  love  and  joy  preferred." 

Mrs.  B.  I  rarely  saw,  not  even  when  looking  down 
into  the  nest,  though  she  was  probably  there  all 
the  while,  brooding  dusky  and  motionless  over  the 
four  eggs.  You  may  have  noticed  that  nothing 
alive  is  so  absolutely  motionless  as  a  hen-bird  sit- 
ting on  her  nest.  You  may  go  up  to  her,  almost 
put  your  hand  upon  her,  and  not  a  feather  will 
stir;  hardly  a  twinkle  of  the  bright  observant  eye 
will  betray  her  consciousness  of  your  presence,  or 
the  maternal  agony  which  at  the  last  minute,  and 
not  till  then,  drives  her  away  by  the  mere  instinct 
of  self-preservation  from  her  rifled  home.  I  won- 
der how  any  boy  who  ever  had  a  home  and  a 
mother  can  take  a  bird's  nest, 

I  thought  the  eggs  a  long  time  hatching;  but 
that  was  Mrs.  B.'s  affair,  not  mine.  One  fine  morn- 
ing, passing  the  apple-tree,  I  heard  a  chirp,  weak 
and  faint,  but  still  the  chirp  of  a  living  thing,  and 
felt  as  pleased  as  —  well,  as  most  people  are  when 
silly,  young,  helpless  things  of  any  sort  are  newly 
introduced  into  the  business  of  this  world.  But 
the  parents  flew  about  so  wildly,  and  appeared  in 


252  STUDIES   FKOM    LIFE. 

such  a  frantic  state  of  mind,  that  I  had  not  the 
heart  to  frighten  them  farther  by  looking  into  the 
nest.  Next  day,  in  their  absence,  I  did  so ;  and 
lo!  four  wide-open  mouths — mouths  and  nothing 
else — stretched  themselves  up  from  the  bottom  of 
the  hole,  in  true  infantine  fashion  clamorously  de- 
manding "something  to  eat." 

"  My  young  friends,"  thought  I,  "  your  papa  and 
mamma  are  likely  to  have  a  busy  life  of  it,  if  this 
is  your  behavior  on  the  second  day  of  your  exist- 
ence." 

But  the  third,  fourth,  and  all  following  days  it 
was  just  the  same.  I  never  saw  any  young  crea- 
tures, including  kittens  and  babies,  so  incessantly 
and  preternaturally  hungry.  As  soon  as  my  step 
was  heard  passing  arose  from  the  heart  of  the  ap- 
ple-tree that  eager  "chirp,  chirp,  chirp,"  and  there 
were  those  four  gaping  beaks,  or  sometimes  three, 
one  having  apparently  had  its  worm  and  retired 
content,  ravenously  appealing  to  me  for  their  brec^k- 
fast.  Very  flattering — to  be  mistaken  for  an  old 
blackbird ! 

In  process  of  time,  my  "young  family,"  as  they 
began  to  be  called,  grew  wiser  and  less  clamorous ; 
but  still,  they  always  chirped  when  I  looked  in  at 
the  nest,  and  their  parents,  seeing  no  ill  result,  be- 
came more  at  ease — even  familiar.  Many  a  morn- 
ing, as  I  sat  reading  under  a  tree  about  three  yards 
off,  Mrs.  B.  would  come  and  sit  on  the  bough  with- 


MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD.        253 

in  a  few  inches  of  her  nursery,  and  hold  a  soft, 
chirping  conversation  with  her  little  ones,  while 
her  husband  was  practicing  his  florid  music  on  the 
topmost  branch  of  the  tree.  They  were  a  very 
happy  family,  I  do  think,  and  a  pattern  to  many 
unfeathered  families  far  and  near. 

One  night  in  June  we  had  a  terrific  storm.  The 
thunder,  close  overhead,  rolled  through  the  heavy 
dawn  like  parks  of  artillery ;  the  rain  came  drip- 
ping through  the  roof  and  soaking  in  at  the  win- 
dow-sills. We  afterward  heard,  with  no  great  sur- 
prise, of  churches  struck,  wheat-stacks  burned  up, 
and  trees  in  the  next  garden  blasted  by  the  light- 
ning; but,  amid  all  these  disasters,  I  grieve  to  con- 
fess, one  of  my  most  prominent  thoughts  was, 
What  will  become  of  my  young  blackbirds?  for 
their  hole  being  open  to  the  sky,  I  expected  the 
torrents  of  rain  would  have  filled  it  like  a  tub,  and 
drowned  them,  poor  wee  things !  in  their  nest. 

How  this  did  not  happen  I  even  now  am  puzzled 
to  decide ;  whether  the  rain  soaked  safely  through 
the  wood,  or  the  parents,  turning  their  wings  into 
umbrellas,  sat  patiently  over  the  opening  of  the 
hole  till  the  storm  was  passed.  But  next  morning, 
when  I  paddled  through  the  dripping  garden  to  see 
if  they  were  alive,  there  they  were,  all  four,  as 
perky  and  hungry  as  ever !  And  at  noon,  a  stray 
sunbeam,  piercing  into  their  shadowy  nursery,  gave 
me  a  distinct  vision  of  the  whole  family,  sound 


254:  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

asleep,  packed  tightly  together,  with  their  heads 
over  one  another's  backs,  not  a  feather  ruffled — 
they  had  feathers  now — among  the  whole  brood. 
What  cared  they  for  thunder-storms  ? 

They  throve  apace.  Once,  coming  suddenly 
round  the  corner,  I  saw  on  the  edge  of  the  hole 
the  drollest  little  head,  all  beak  and  eyes,  which 
looked  about  for  a  minute,  and  then  popped  clown 
again.  Doubtless  the  eldest  of  the  family,  an  ad- 
venturous and  inquisitive  young  bird,  desirous  to 
investigate  the  world  for  himself;  after  wrhich  he 
and  the  rest  were  probably  well  scolded  by  the  old 
blackbirds,  and  advised  caution ;  for  sometimes  the 
silence  in  the  nest  was  such  that  I  thought  they 
had  all  flown,  till  I  caught  sight  of  the  four  little 
yellow  bills  and  eight  twinkling  eyes. 

Still,  one  now  might  daily  expect  their  depart- 
ure; and  I  own  to  an  uncomfortable  feeling  at 
thought  of  the  empty  nest,  until  an  incident  hap- 
pened which  reconciled  me  to  the  natural  course 
of  things. 

One  morning,  at  our  railway  station,  I  overheard 
two  of  my  neighbors  conversing. 

"Yes,"  said  one,  "they  are  very  great  annoy- 
ances in  gardens.  I  shot  this  morning  a  fellow 
which  no  doubt  had  his  nest  somewhere  near — a 
remarkabty  fine  blackbird." 

"Sir,"  I  was  just  on  the  point  of  saying,  "was 
ifc  my  blackbird  ?  have  you  dared  to  shoot  my 


MY   BABES   IN   THE   WOOD.  255 

blackbird?"  and  a  thrill  of  alarm,  mixed  with  a 
sensation  so  fierce  that  I  now  smile  to  recall  it, 
passed  through  me,  and  remained  long  after  I  be- 
came aware  of  the  ludicrous  impossibility  of  ex- 
pressing it.  If  I  could  have  given  "  a  piece  of  my 
mind"  to  that  stout  middle-aged  gentleman,  who 
went  on  saying  what  a  good  shot  he  was,  and  how 
many  birds  he  usually  killed  in  his  garden  of  a 
morning,  he  might  not  have  gone  into  town  to  his 
office  so  composedly. 

The  wrong  he  did,  however,  was  to  some  other 
"  young  family,"  not  mine.  I  found  them  chirping 
away,  neither  fatherless  nor  motherless.  Mrs.  B. 
was  hopping,  stout  and  matronly,  among  the  apple- 
branches,  and  Mr.  B.  caroling  his  heart  out  in  his 
favorite  cherry-tree,  where  probably  he  feasted  as 
contentedly  as  our  friend  of  the  gun  would  on 
lamb  and  green  peas  in  the  merchants'  dining- 
rooms. 

My  happy  family  !  That  was  my  last  sight  of 
their  innocent  enjoyment.  The  same  evening,  two 
warning  voices  insinuated  cruelly,  "Your  black- 
birds are  flown." 

I  denied  it.  Not  ten  minutes  before,  I  had 
heard,  or  fancied  I  heard,  their  usual  sleepy  chirp 
before  they  were  quiet  for  the  night  at  the  bottom 
of  the  hole. 

"  Yes,  they  are  gone.     We  poked — " 

"You  didn't  surely  poke  them  with  a  stick?'1 


256  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

"No,"  cried  the  accused  criminals,  "but  we 
poked  a  straw,  and  then  dropped  a  gooseberry 
down  into  their  hole.  We  heard  it  fall,  and  not  a 
chirp — not  a  stir.  Now  not  even  your  blackbirds 
could  have  received  such  an  unexpected  visitor — a 
large,  hard,  green  gooseberry,  without  giving  some 
sign  of  surprise.  Depend  upon  it,  they  are  flown." 

They  were  not,  though.  Next  morning  I  both 
heard  and  saw  them  again,  snug  as  ever,  or  so  I 
believed.  But  a  few  hours  after,  taking  advantage 
of  the  bright  noon  sunshine  pouring  direct  on  it,  I 
looked  deep  down  into  the  familiar  hole.  There 
was  the  nest,  neat  and  round,  and  there,  in  the  mid- 
dle of  it,  reigning  in  desolate  grandeur,  was  the 
large  green  gooseberry ! 

"  My  young  family  is  gone  !"  said  I,  rather  sadly, 
when,  having  peered  in  every  garden-nook,  and 
found  no  sign  of  them,  I  carne  in-doors. 

"  Oh  yes,"  was  the  reply ;  "  they  left  the  nest  an 
hour  ago.  The  boy  helped  them  out.  They  had 
got  to  the  top  of  the  hole,  and  couldn't  get  farther; 
so  he  just  put  his  hand  in  and  gave  them  a  lift,  and 
out  they  flew." 

"All  four  of  them?" 

"  All  four — and  as  big  as  their  parents." 

"  And  they  have  not  been  seen  about  the  garden 
any  where?" 

"Nowhere.  They  just  got  out  of  the  nest,  and 
away  they  flew." 


MY  BABES  IN  THE  WOOD.  257 

So  that  is  the  end  of  my  story. 

I  hope  my  "young  family"  are  enjoying  them- 
selves very  much  somewhere ;  that  they  find  plenty 
of  fruit,  and  worms,  and  sunshiny  weather ;  above 
all,  that  they  take  care  to  keep  out  of  the  garden 
of  my  warlike  neighbor  who  takes  his  early  morn- 
ing rambles  in  company  with  a  gun.  But  my  gar- 
den, I  confess,  is  a  little  duller  than  it  used  to  be, 
and  for  some  weeks  to  come  I  shall  probably  pre- 
fer other  corners  of  it  to  that  which  contains  the 
empty  cradle  of  my  Babes  in  the  Wood. 


258  STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


Stye  Ulan  of 

ACCORDING  TO   OUR   GREAT-GRANDMOTHERS. 

CERTAIN  classical  works  resemble  ghosts,  which 
every  body  hears  of  and  nobody  sees.  How  few, 
even  among  their  professed  worshipers,  really  know 
enough  of  the  two  grand  idols  of  English  litera- 
ture to  stand  an  examination  in  Milton  or  Shak- 
speare,  even  if  verbal  quotations  were  not  required, 
but  merely  a  general  acquaintance  with  the  argu- 
ment of  the  poems,  the  characters  and  plots  of  the 
plays.  Also,  in  spite  of  the  grandiloquent  non- 
sense talked  about  the  father  of  English  verse,  who 
but  a  true  poet  ever  appreciates  Chaucer?  And 
did  any  reader,  even  a  poet,  fairly  get  through 
Spenser's  Faerie  Queene?  Is  it  the  blame  of  the 
public  or  the  publishers  that  a  late  much-adver- 
tised edition  of  the  British  classics  stopped  at  its 
second  or  third  volume?  Has  the  world  grown 
stupider  than  of  yore,  or  is  it  only  suffering  from 
the  reaction  of  obstinacy,  after  several  centuries'  im- 
position of  celebrated  authors,  whose  works  "  no 
gentleman's  library  should  ever  be  without."  And 
seldom  is ;  for  they  are  usually  found — safe  on  the 
shelves. 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  259 

How  few,  for  instance,  of  the  novel-readers  of  the 
present  generation  have  the  slightest  knowledge, 
other  than  by  name,  of  the  hero  of  our  great-grand- 
mothers—the "man  of  men,"  as  his  author  fre- 
quently entitles  him.  Who  of  them  could  answer 
affirmatively  the  simple  question,  "Did  you  ever 
read  Sir  Charles  Grandison?" 

Some  may  plead  sarcastically,  "No,  but  I  tried." 
Cruel  condemnation !  Poor  Mr.  Richardson,  may  it 
never  reach  thee  in  thy  already-forgotten  grave; 
and  may  it  prove  a  warning  to  all  voluminous  writ- 
ers depending  on  future  as  well  as  present  celebri- 
ty! And  you,  ye  venerable  ancestresses,  whose 
tastes  were  simple,  and  whose  books  few — who 
used  to  adore  the  portly  old  bookseller  even  as  the 
romantic  maidens  of  to-day  adore  Dickens,  Bulwer, 
Thackeray — haunt  not  in  rustling  brocades  and 
ghostly  heel-taps  your  degenerate  descendants  be- 
cause they  own  to  have  tried  to  read  Sir  Charles 
Grandison. 

Yet  the  undertaking  requires  courage.  First,  to 
drag  from  dustiest  topmost  shelves,  or  meekly  re- 
quest at  the  oldest  of  circulating  libraries  a  work — 
not  exactly  the  "last  new  novel,"  nor  very  like- 
ly to  be  "out."  Then,  having  carried  it  home,  for 
which  purpose  may  be  recommended  a  porter's 
knot  or  a  small  carpet-bag,  resolutely  to  open  vol. 
i.  with  its  yellow,  grimy,  torn  and  mended  pages — 
its  brown  antique  type  and  eccentric  spelling — its 


260  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

fly-leaves  and  margins  adorned  here  and  there  with 
out-of-date  caligraphy — comments  on  the  text,  or 
scrawled  dates  and  names,  the  owner  of  which  may 
be  presumed  long  since  to  scrawl  no  more.  Some- 
thing melancholy  is  there,  even  in  the  queerness  of 
this  old-world  book,  resuscitated  for  the  criticism  of 
a  new  generation. 

Let  us  copy  the  title-page : 

"  THE  HISTORY  OF  SIR  CHARLES  GRANDISON, 

In  a  Series  of  Letters. 
By  Mr.  SAMUEL  EICHARDSON, 
Author  of  Pamela  and  Clarissa. 


In  Seven  Volumes. 
The  Eighth  Edition. 

Printed  for  T.  Longman,  J.  Johnson,  G.  G.  and  J. 
Eobertson,  E.  Baldwin,  J.  Nicholls,  S.  Bladon,  W. 
Eichardson,  W.  Lane,  W.  Lowades,  G.  and  T.  Wil- 
kie,  P.  M'Queen,  C.  D.  Pinquenit,  Cadell  and  Pa- 
vies,  and  S.  Bagster." 

A  long  list  of  names,  of  which  we  know  abso- 
lutely nothing,  except  the  certainty  that  every  one 
of  them  might  be  found  in  some  churchward.  Op- 
posite, a  frontispiece,  representing  a  charming  young 
lady  in  hoop,  long  waist,  and  turreted  hair,  stepping 
out  of  a  coach,  over  one  prostrate  wounded  gentle- 
man, into  the  arms  of  another,  who  is  magnificent  in 
wig,  queue,  and  sword;  in  coat  long-vested,  long- 


THE    MAN    OF   MEN.  261 

tailed,  breeches,  stockings,  and  shoe-buckles.  Be- 
hind, two  other  figures  on  horseback  appear  dis- 
coursing amiably  together,  with  great  composure 
considering  the  circumstances,  and  pointing  admir- 
ingly to  the  aforesaid  standing  gentleman.  Need 
we  doubt  his  identity?  He  is — he  must  be — Sir 
Charles  Grandison. 

His  name,  at  least,  is  familiar  still.  It  has  be- 
come proverbial.  Its  very  sound  conveys  images 
of  courtesy,  elegance,  loyalty,  chivalry — the  chiv- 
alry of  the  era  when,  "  during  the  troubles  in  Scot- 
land this  summer,"  Prince  Charlie's  friends  died 
kissing  the  white  rose  at  their  button-holes — the 
loyalty  with  which  King  George  and  Queen  Caro- 
line, going  in  state  to  hear  u  the  oratorios  of  young 
Mr.  Handel,"  were  regarded  as  beings  of  a  superior 
order,  in  whom  the  divine  right  of  kings  was  un- 
questioned and  unquestionable. 

To  that  special  age  does  he  belong,  this  faultless 
hero,  exact  in  all  religious,  moral,  and  social  duties, 
blameless  of  life  and  conversation,  incapable  alike 
of  breaking  the  smallest  rule  of  etiquette  and  the 
Ten  Commandments;  rich,  handsome,  well  born, 
well  bred,  fitted  by  all  combinations  of  nature  and 
circumstance  to  be  the  master  of  Grandison  Hall. 
But  we  are  forestalling  the  story — a  thing  not  to 
be  endured  in  this  century-after-date  criticism  upon 
a  work  of  which  few  readers  may  even  know  the 
general  outline  of  the  plot* 


262  STUDIES   FROM    LIFE. 

It  is  of  the  simplest  kind.  Harriet  Byron,  a 
lovely  young  Northamptonshire  lady,  long  orphan- 
ed, but  blessed  with  a  circle  of  adoring  relatives ;  a 
grandmother  Shirley,  an  aunt,  uncle,  and  cousins 
Selby,  and  a  godfather  Deane,  goes  up  to  London 
in  order  to  avoid  three  lovers,  and  is  shortly  haunt- 
ed by  about  six  more.  All  are  refused,  and  not  un- 
kindly, though  a  little  saucy  vanity  peeps  out  in 
this  provincial  Helen,  every  body's  darling,  who 
sets  all  hearts  aflame.  But  the  boldest  and  wicked- 
est of  the  lovers,  Sir  Hargrave  Pollexfen,  carries 
her  off,  in  order  to  compel  her  into  matrimony. 
"She  is  timely  rescued  by  an  unknown  young  gen- 
tleman, who  conveys  her  home  to  his  sisters,  and 
wins  her  eternal  gratitude.  Of  course,  this  grati- 
tude very  speedily  becomes  love,  for  the  gentleman 
is  Sir  Charles  Grandison. 

All  is  now  over  with  our  saucy  little  Harriet. 
The  gradual  change  from  girlish  conceit  to  humil- 
ity— from  mischievousness  to  meekness — from  an 
excellent  good  opinion  of  herself  to  an  absorbing 
admiration  of  somebody  else,  is  admirably  done. 
One  wonders  how  honest  old  Samuel  got  his  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  girl-kind,  though  not  of  woman- 
kind. "The  frankest  of  women,"  which  she  cer- 
tainly is,  finds  her  love  apparently  unreturned; 
and  after  various  mysteries,  and  much  "brother- 
and- sisterly"  nonsense,  which  indeed  all  the  char- 
acters are  very  prone  to,  Sir  Charles  delicately  in- 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  263 

forms  her  of  a  certain  Italian  lady,  Clementina, 
who,  hopelessly  loving  him,  has  gone  mad  for  his 
sake,  and  whom  he  feels  himself  bound  to  marry. 
He  tells  the  whole  story  to  the  girl  whom  he  him- 
self really  loves,  but  dares  not  woo — poor  Harriet 
Byron,  and  asks  her  advice  upon  it,  which  she 
gives  (good  generous  soul !  now  raised  by  sorrow 
far  above  all  her  little  follies),  namely,  that  he 
should  go  at  once  and  marry  the  Italian  lady. 

This  situation,  and  a  few  parting  scenes  between 
the  unacknowledged,  honor-silenced  lovers,  whom 
all  their  mutual  friends  are  longing  to  see  united, 
is  the  finest  portion  of  the  book.  Sir  Charles,  gen- 
erous, tender,  and  full  of  knightly  honor,  is  modesty 
itself  toward  both  women,  and,  indeed,  toward  all 
the  many  fair  ones  who  bestow  on  him  their  regard. 
He  pathetically  observes,  poor  fellow  !  "  that  he 
has  suffered  so  much  from  good  women ;"  while  the 
fond,  hapless  Harriet  has  just  pride  enough  to  hide 
her  affection  from  its  object,  and  nobility  enough  to 
follow  his  lead  in  the  cruel  struggle  between  duty 
and  love.  Few  authors  have  conceived  a  finer 
"position,"  or  maintained  it  more  successfully. 

But  afterward,  interest  wanes,  and  the  story  drags 
in  a  manner  intolerable  to  modern  readers,  who 
like  to  gallop  through  three  volumes  of  exciting 
fiction  at  the  rate  of  a  volume  per  hour.  Conver- 
sation after  conversation  between  Sir  Charles  and 
the  noble  Italian  family,  who  are  thankful  for  even 


264  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE. 

a  heretic  son-in-law  in  order  to  save  their  Clemen- 
tina; between  him  and  Clementina,  who,  loving 
only  "  his  Mind"  (with  a  capital  M),  refuses  her 
beloved  for  conscience'  sake ;  his  pleadings — her 
pleadings — every  body's  pleadings — scene  upon 
scene  of  "  exaltation,"  generosity,  and  woe,  termin- 
ate in  an  agreement  that  the  Chevalier  Grandison 
shall  become  her  "  fourth  brother"  (again  our  au- 
thor's favorite  adopted  relationship),  and  return  to 
England  a  free  man.  Upon  which,  nothing  loth, 
though  somewhat  distracted  by  this  "  double  love," 
he,  after  amiably  declining  a  third  too-devoted  lady, 
Olivia,  offers  himself  to  Harriet  Byron,  or,  rather,  to 
her  grandmother,  and,  after  a  whole  volume  full  of 
punctilio  and  hesitation,  finally  marries  her. 

Finally,  said  we? — good  Mr.  Richardson  knows 
not  the  meaning  of  the  word.  After  the  marriage, 
we  have  a  volume  and  a  quarter  more.  Lady 
Clementina,  in  an  accession  of  insanity,  flies  to  En- 
gland, is  met  and  protected  by  her  " fourth  brother," 
comforted  by  his  wife,  and  restored  to  her  friends, 
with  a  good  hope  that  she  will  neither  die  nor  be- 
come a  nun,  but  the  wife  of  a  faithful  Italian  lover. 
Emily  Jervois — Sir  Charles's  ward  and  another  of 
his  involuntary  lady-killings — also  survives  to  mar- 
ry some  one  else ;  his  sisters,  Lady  L.  and  Lady  G., 
take  a  brief  opportunity  between  the  numerous 
weddings  to  present  him  with  a  nephew  and  niece; 
and  other  minor  characters  bad  and  good,  have  their 


THE   MAN   OF  MEN.  265 

affairs  settled.  At  last,  the  book  ends  quite  abrupt- 
ly;  just  as  you  have  grown  to  like  its  lengthiness, 
and  expect  it  to  go  on,  winding  and  unwinding  in- 
terminable histories — like  life,  lo,  it  ceases!  Sir 
Charles  and  Lady  Grandison — their  aristocratic  kin 
— their  worthy  Northamptonshire  relatives — their 
friends  and  acquaintance,  good  and  bad — all  vanish 
into  air.  You  close  volume  seven — omitting  prob- 
ably the  117  pages  of  "  Index,  Historical  and  Char- 
acteristical" — and  feel  that  you  have  performed  a 
moral  duty — you  have  read  Sir  Charles  Grandison. 

Now,  one  asks,  in  what  lies  the  charm  of  this 
book,  to  have  become  one  of  the  remarkable  facts 
of  literature?  for  such  it  is,  and  all  the  ridicule  of 
Young  England  will  never  put  it  down.  Style  is 
not  its  chief  merit,  for  it  rarely  rises  above  the  epis- 
tolary-conversational, as  practiced  in  the  time  of  our 
great-grandfathers  and  grandmothers,  who  certainly 
wrote,  and  rnay  be  supposed  to  have  talked,  after 
that  pattern.  As  for  story,  the  plot  is  slender  as  a 
thread,  and  transparent  as  daylight ;  from  the  very 
first  volume  an  acute  novel-reading  child  of  twelve 
would  guess  the  end. 

The  secret  is  that,  with  all  its  extravagances,  or 
what  seem  so  to  us,  the  book  has  intense  vitality. 
It  is  a  picture,  pre-Raphaelite  in  its  minuteness,  of  j 
English  life  as  existing  a  century  ago.  We  feel 
throughout  that,  down  to  the  merest  accessories,  the 
people  therein  are  living  people ;  that,  in  spite  of 
M 


266  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

their  "Sir,"  "Madam,"  "Best  of  men,"  "Loveliest 
of  -women" — their  hoops,  wigs,  swords,  and  ruffles, 
they  are  true  flesh  and  blood ;  more  so  than  scores 
of  the  adorable  women  and  impossible  men  who 
yearly  figure  through  the  twenty  "best  novels  of 
the  season." 

Earely  in  any  fiction  does  one  meet  with  such  a 
number  of  characters,  all  so  strongly  individual, 
and  varied  as  nature  herself.  From  the  mere 
sketches,  such  as  droll  Uncle  Selby,  to  the  second- 
ary personages,  as  the  inimitable  Charlotte  Grandi- 
son,  up  to  the  all-perfect  pair — she,  beloved  of  all 
men,  and  he,  admired  of  all  women — round  whom 
every  body  else  is  perpetually  circumvolving  in  at- 
titudes of  adoration — they  are  thorough  human  be- 
ings ;  odd  as  they  appear  in  some  things,  one  feels 
that  one's  revered  ancestors  of  a  hundred  years 
back  might — nay,  must — have  been  just  like  them. 

And  for  the  long-windedness  of  the  history,  is 
not  life  itself  long-winded  ?  Do  we  not  take  up 
threads  of  interest,  follow  them  a  while,  drop  them 
or  lose  them,  find  them  again,  and  again  they  van- 
ish ?  Alas  for  novelists  and  dramatists !  few  real 
histories  furnish  a  complete  plot,  satisfactory  in  all 
its  parts,  with  a  death  or  marriage  to  wind  up  with. 
Life  is  perpetually  twisting  and  twining,  weaving 
and  unweaving,  until  at  last  it  breaks  off  suddenly, 
or  we  from  it,  and  it  is  puzzled  over  no  more.  The 
author  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison  mav  have  had 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  267 

neither  invention  nor  imagination,  but  he  certainly 
had  the  faculty  of  beholding  life  as  it  is,  and  paint- 
ing it  as  he  saw  it. 

And  what  an  eye  for  character?  Witness  Char- 
lotte Grandison,  afterward  Lady  G.,  with  her  loveli- 
ness, her  mischief,  her  irresistible  drollery — all  but, 
yet  never  quite  heartless;  her  half-compelled  mar- 
riage with  the  honest,  devoted  Lord  G.;  her  tor- 
menting of  him,  and  her  struggles  for  matrimonial 
victory,  till  at  last  conscientiousness  conquers,  and 
"my  fool,"  "my  poor  creature,"  becomes  heartily 
loved  as  "  my  odd  creature,'7  "  my  good  man,"  and 
the  papa  of  "my  little  marmozet."  With  all  her 
naughtiness,  Lady  G.  is  the  most  bewitching  and 
lovable  personage  in  the  book — worth  a  dozen  Har- 
riet Byrons.  Clementina,  the  next  most  prominent 
sketch,  with  her  romantic  love,  her  beautiful  bigot- 
ry, and  ecstasy  of  pious  self-renunciation,  is,  though 
slightly  sentimental,  very  touching.  Some  bits  of 
her  madness  almost  remind  one  of  Ophelia.  There 
is  an  ideal  loftiness  and  purity  about  her,  which 
reconciles  one  to  Sir  Charles's  rather  ridiculous  po- 
sition as  —  somebody  suggests — the  "ass  between 
two  bundles  of  hay."  You  feel  that  this  venera- 
tion for 

"His  spirit's  mate,  compassionate  and  wise" — 

"  the  noblest  of  women,"  as  he  continually  calls 
her,  is  quite  natural,  and  will  never  interfere  with 


268  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

the  love  he  bears  to  the  "  happiest  of  women" — 
his  wife  Harriet. 

Harriet  Byron,  regarded  as  a  woman,  is — her  sex 
will  say — a  failure.  Trying  to  soften  her  angelic 
perfections  by  giving  her  a  few  foibles  and  "  femal- 
ities,"  as  uncle  Selby  would  call  them,  the  author 
sometimes  makes  her  very  much  like  a  pretty  ami- 
able— fool.  She  is  always  trying  to  act  "greatly," 
and  never  managing  it — except  in  a  passive  sense ; 
and,  though  this  subdued  part  may  be  necessary  in 
point  of  art — query,  did  our  author  ever  think  of 
art? — one  feels  as  if  a  little  more  were  necessary, 
even  to  constitute  her  as  moon  to  the  hero's  sun. 
One  instinctively  pictures  her  at  forty — fair  and  fat 
— Lady  Grandison  of  Grandison  Hall — chaperon- 
ing the  Misses  and  indulging  the  Masters  Grandi- 
son— a  little  foolish  sometimes,  as  people  always 
admired  and  petted  are  prone  to  be ;  a  little  com- 
monplace and  conventional,  yet  most  sweet  and 
good ;  in  short,  the  mirror  of  matronhood,  whose 
whole  life  is  absorbed  in  one  belief  that  the  man  of 
men — the  "entire  and  perfect  chrysolite" — is  Sir 
Charles  Grandison. 

Besides  its  infinite  variety  of  character,  another 
charm  of  this  old  book  is  the  curious  and  evidently 
exact  picture  it  gives  of  the  manners  and  customs, 
principles  and  sentiments  of  a  time  old  enough  to 
be  now  nearly  forgotten,  yet  too  modern  to  have 
become  traditional  or  historical.  We  see,  as  be- 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  269 

fore  noticed,  the  accurate  presentment  of  our  great- 
grandfathers and  great-grandmothers  in  their  daily 
life.  They  must  have  been  at  once  a  great  deal 
more  simple  and  more  formal  than  we. 

For  instance,  the  "punctilios"  of  courtship  and 
matrimony  strike  us  moderns  as  particularly  droll. 
Love-making — no,  let  us  keep  to  the  proper  word 
— courtship — for  any  thing  so  undignified  as  love 
seems  never  to  be  thought  of — is  apparently  the 
one  business  of  young  men  and  young  women. 
The  latter,  from  their  earliest  youth,  are  educated 
with  one  end — to  be  married.  Old  maids  are  quite 
remarkable  facts.  Every  young  gentlewoman  is 
openly  attended  by  her  suitors — her  "fellows,77  as 
Charlotte  Grandison  irreverently  calls  them — who, 
according  to  their  natures,  sue  her,  die  for  her, 
threaten  her,  squabble  over  her,  and  altogether 
keep  up  the  sort  of  behavior  for  which  we  should 
now  call  in  Policeman  X.  or  Detective  Field. 

For  all  these  vagaries,  manages  de  convenance 
seem  by  no  means  so  discreditable  as  we  nowa- 
days are  disposed  to  assert,  however  we  may  act. 
Fortunes  and  settlements  are  openly  discussed  by 
the  most  devoted  couples.  "  Treaties77 — not  merely 
from  a  gentleman  for  a  lady,  but  vice  versa — are  fre- 
quently set  on  foot  by  the  friends  of  the  parties. 
Thus  poor  Sir  Charles  has  to  decline  proposals  for 
his  hand  from  several  enamored  ladies  and  their 
relatives.  Even  the  modest  Miss  Harriet,  when  her 


270  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

sweet,  saucy  stoniness  toward  mankind  is  conquer- 
ed, and  herself  "entangled  in  a  hopeless  passion," 
does  not  scruple  to  avow  it  to  about  fifteen  people, 
nor  to  take  counsel  from  all  her  own  relatives  and 
those  of  the  still  silent  gentleman  as  to  her  chances 
of  his  heart.  Of  her  own — so  as  he  does  not  know 
it — she  seems  not  the  least  ashamed ;  for,  as  she 
naively  observes,  "Is  not  the  man  Sir  Charles 
Grand  ison  ?" 

This  odd  mixture  of  freedom  and  formality  per- 
vades every  thing.  Young  ladies,  married  after  a 
fortnight's  wooing,  snub  their  unfortunate  husbands 
for  daring  to  beg  or  steal  a  kiss  in  presence  of  the 
waiting-woman.  Young  gentlemen,  a  day  or  two 
before  marriage,  while  actually  venturing  in  the 
retirement  of  the  "  cedar  parlor"  upon  the  above 
terrible  enormity,  still  address  the  lady  as  "  Mad- 
am," "Dearest  Madam,"  "  My  beloved  Miss  Byron." 
Husbands  and  wives,  brothers  and  sisters,  never 
call  one  another  by  any  thing  but  their  titles — as 
"  Sir  Charles,"  "Lady  L.,"  "My  Lord  G. ;"  and  nev- 
er, even  in  moments  of  the  deepest  emotion,  forget 
to  bow  over  one  another's  hands. 

This  queer  incongruity  affects  us  with  an  amused 
wonderment.  We  pause  to  consider  whether  we 
have  grown  wiser  or  more  foolish  than  our  progen- 
itors; and  also  what  our  "dear  distant  descend- 
ants" will  think  of  our  manners  and  customs,  modes 
of  action  and  tone  of  feeling — as  portrayed  in  those 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  271 

present-day  novels  which  shall  survive  the  century. 
And  here,  judging  them  by  the  only  secure  test  of 
permanent  fame — accurate,  unexaggerated  nature — 
the  same  in  all  ages,  though  modified  by  the  out- 
ward impress  of  the  time — we  can  not  but  suspect 
that  their  number  will  be  few ;  that  many  very 
clever  and  amusing  popularities  of  to-day,  will  slip 
into  utter  oblivion  to-morrow,  or  be  preserved  as 
mere  caricatures,  and  laughed  at  quite  as  much  as 
we  now  laugh  at  Sir  Charles  Grandison. 

The  book  itself  may  move  our  risibility,  but  the 
hero  himself  never.  With  all  the  flourish  of  trum- 
pets that  heralds  him  —  the  perpetual  chorus  of 
praise  that  is  dinned  into  our  ears  about  him — the 
raptures  that  all  his  friends  go  into  concerning  ev- 
ery thing  he  is,  and  does,  and  says,  and  the  slight- 
ly "  priggish"  (oh,  could  he  have  heard  the  slang 
word !)  way  in  which  he  himself  is  perpetually  ut- 
tering grand  moral  sentiments,  and  perfectly  con- 
scious of  every  good  action  he  performs — still,  we 
are  compelled  to  own  that  Sir  Charles  Grandison. 
justifies  the  universal  adoration — that  he  really  is 
the  man  of  men. 

Thoroughly  noble,  just,  and  generous;  pure 
through  the  temptations  of  a  licentious  time ;  as- 
serting true  honor  against  all  the  shame  of  it  then 
current;  polite  without  insincerity;  pious  without 
either  intolerance  or  cant ;  severe  in  virtue,  yet 
pitiful  to  the  most  vicious;  faithful  to  his  friends, 


272  STUDIES   FKOM   LIFE 

and  forgiving  to  his  enemies,  till  his  last  foe  is  con* 
quered  by  the  force  of  kindness;  loved  by  all 
women,  admired  by  all  men,  yet  never  losing  a 
sweet  humility,  which,  coming  out  as  it  does  at 
times  to  his  nearest  ties — his  revered  Dr.  Bartlett 
and  his  beloved  Harriet — must,  we  feel  assured,  be 
always  his  before  his  God.  The  marvel  is  how  the 
little  fat  bookseller,  whom  nobody  ever  accuses  of 
genius,  could  have  conceived  such  an  ideal  of  a  true 
Christian  gentleman. 

Hear  what  he  says  himself  on  the  subject — 
worthy  Samuel — whom  a  late  serial  tale  has  pic- 
tured in  his  habit  as  he  lived,  strutting  through 
Tunbridge  streets  with  a  bevy  of  admiring  woman- 
kind following  the  creator  of  Sir  Charles  Grandi- 
son. 

"  The  editor  of  the  foregoing  collection  has  the 
more  readily  undertaken  to  publish  it"  [amiable 
pretense]  "  because  he  thinks  human  nature  has 
often,  of  late,  been  shown  in  a  light  too  degrading ; 
and  he  hopes,  from  this  series  of  letters,  it  will  be 
seen  that  characters  may  be  good  without  being 
unnatural Notwithstanding,  it  has  been  ob- 
served by  some  that,  in  general,  Sir  Charles  Grandi- 
son  approaches  too  near  to  the  faultless  character 
which  critics  censure  as  being  above  nature.  Yet 
it  ought  to  be  observed,  too,  that  he  performs  no 
one  action  which  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  any  man 
in  his  situation  to  perform,  and  that  he  checks  and 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  273 

restrains  himself  in  no  one  instance  in  which  it  is 
not  the  duty  of  a  prudent  and  good  man  to  restrain 
himself.'7 

Excellently  and  truthfully  argued,  dear  old  Sam- 
uel. No  one  can  read  thy  musty  old  tomes  with- 
out the  conviction  that  thy  stout  body  must  have 
inclosed  a  greater,  purer,  more  Christian  soul  than 
the  be-wigged  lords  and  high-heeled  ladies  who 
sailed  down  Tunbridge  streets,  the  clever  wits  and 
satirical  or  sentimental  poets  that  enlivened  Lon- 
don, nay,  even  the  admired  Dr.  Johnson  himself, 
ever  dreamed  of. 

It  is  curious  to  trace  how  simple  amid  an  age  of 
formalities — how  liberal  in  the  most  ultra  days  of 
bigoted  religionism — is  this  old  man's  ideal  of  good- 
ness, as  presented  in  his  hero :  how  he  makes  him 
pardon  the  crudest  injuries,  treat  kindly  the  lowest 
of  the  low,  hold  out  repentance  and  atonement  to 
the  vilest  of  the  vile ;  in  all  things  pursuing  a  di- 
rect course ;  being,  as  he  says,  "  a  law  unto  him- 
self," amenable  only  to  his  Maker,  and  afraid  of 
nothing  except  to  sin  against  his  Maker.  In  his 
actions  as  in  his  character,  as  son,  brother,  friend, 
husband — fulfilling,  instinctively  as  it  were,  the  one 
law  of  true  love  and  true  lovableness,  "esteeming 
others  better  than  himself" — he  is  the  noblest  of  all 
fictitious  heroes,  ancient  or  modern,  with  whom  we 
are  acquainted. 

Curious,  too,  to  see  how  far  in  advance  of  his  age, 
M2 


274  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

in  some  things,  is  this  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  or 
rather  Mr.  Samuel  Richardson,  who,  in  the  "con- 
cluding note,"  goes  on  to  say,  with  reference  to  a 
special  point  in  the  book  and  in  the  character  of 
the  hero : 

"It  has  been  objected  by  some  persons  that  a 
man  less  able  by  strength  or  skill  to  repel  an  af- 
front than  Sir  Charles  appears  to  have  been,  could 
not,  with  such  honor,  have  extricated  himself  out 
of  difficulties  on  refusing  a  challenge.  And  this  is 
true,  meaning  by  honor  the  favorable  opinion  of 
the  European  world  from  the  time  of  its  being 
overrun  by  Gothic  barbarism  down  to  the  present. 
But  as  that  notion  of  honor  is  evidently  an  absurd 
and  mischievous  one,  and  yet  multitudes  are  at  a 
loss  to  get  over  it,  the  rejection  and  confutation  of 
it  by  a  person  whom  it  was  visible  the  considera- 
tion of  his  own  safety  did  not  influence,  must  surely 
be  of  no  small  weight.  And  when  it  is  once  allowed 
that  there  are  cases  when  these  polite  invitations  to 
murder"  [bravo,  Samuel !]  "  may,  consistently  with 
honor,  be  disregarded,  a  little  attention  will  easily 
find  others:  vulgar  notions  will  insensibly  wear 
out,  and  more  ground  be  gained  by  degrees  than 
could  have  been  attempted  with  hope  of  success  at 
once,  till  at  length  all  may  come  to  stand  on  the 
firm  footing  of  reason  and  religion.  In  the  mean 
time,  they  who  are  less  qualified  to  carry  off  right 
behavior  with  honor  in  the  eye  of  common  judges 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  275 

will,  however,  be  esteemed  for  it  by  every  serious 
and  prudent  person,  and  perhaps  inwardly  by  many 
who  are  mean  enough  to  join  outwardly  in  blaming 
them." 

A  bold  doctrine  to  set  forth  in  the  year  1796 — 
the  date  of  this  seventh  edition.  The  first  edition 
must  have  somewhat  astonished  the  "gentlemen" 
of  the  period. 

Great  indeed  must  have  been  the  influence  of  this 
book  in  its  day — a  day  when  all  new  books,  and 
especially  novels,  were  comparatively  rare.  It  ap- 
peared originally  in  serial  volumes ;  and  Sir  John 
Herschel  has  somewhere  related  that  when  the  pe- 
nultimate volume,  containing  the  marriage  of  Sir 
Charles  and  his  Harriet,  reached  a  certain  enthusi- 
astic English  village,  the  inhabitants  immediately 
set  all  the  bells  a  ringing!  In  any  case,  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  its  universal  notoriety;  how  the  "fine 
gentlemen'7  read  it  over  their  chocolate,  and  the 
ladies  over  the  dressing  of  their  hair;  how  even 
young  gentlewomen  of  tender  age  were  allowed  to 
sit  poring  over  it  in  old-fashioned  gardens  or  upon 
prim  high-backed  chairs ;  for  it  was  notable  then, 
as  now,  as  being  one  of  the  few  fictions  of  the  time 
which  contains  nothing  objectionable.  There  is 
hardly  a  word  in  it  that  we,  more  sensitive,  if  not 
more  really  modest  than  our  great-grandmothers, 
would  scruple  to  read  aloud  to  our  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. 


276  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

The  former — bless  the  lads! — if  at  all  given 
to  "fast"  ways  and  satirical  young  Englandism. 
might  probably  make  a  great  mock  at  this  digni- 
fied, decorous,  bowing  and  hand-kissing,  reverently 
behaved  and  pure-minded  young  gentleman  of  a 
past  century,  who  is  not  ashamed  to  honor  his  par- 
ents— even  a  bad  father — to  love  his  sisters,  and  to 
respect  all  women;  who,  a  few  days  before  mar- 
riage, can  say  to  his  wife — alas  !  you  poor  lads,  how 
few  of  you  will  be  able  to  say  it  to  your  wives ;  and 
yet  the  sentence  ought  to  be  written  in  golden  let- 
ters upon  every  one  of  your  consciences,  for  it  is 
the  utmost  glory  of  manhood : 

"  Give  me  leave  to  boast — it  is  my  boast — that  I 
can  look  back  on  my  past  life,  and  bless  God  that 
I  never,  from  childhood  to  manhood,  willfully  gave 
pain  to  either  the  motherly  or  sisterly  heart,  nor 
from  manhood  to  the  present  hour  to  any  other 
woman." 

But,  whatever  the  boys  might  feel,  we  are  certain 
our  girls  would  be,  every  one  of  them,  in  love  with 
Sir  Charles  Grandison. 

Heaven  help  us !  are  good  men  become  so  rare, 
that  the  mere  presentment  of  such  in  a  book  is  to 
be  scoffed  at  by  many,  and  regarded  by  almost  all 
as  unnatural  and  impossible  ?  a  merely  good  man, 
not  one  whit  better  (as  the  author  himself  suggests) 
than  all  good  men  ought  to  be?  We  believe  not. 
We  believe  that  neither  in  this,  nor  in  the  past 


THE   MAN   OF   MEN.  277 

generation,  are  honor  and  virtue  left  without  a  wit- 
ness— without  many  witnesses.  Men  not  altogether 
perfect — the  ideal  must  always  be  a  step  beyond  the 
real,  or  it  is  no  ensample  at  all — but  honest  men 
and  true,  who,  taking  up  such  a  tale  as  this,  need 
neither  blush  nor  deride  as  they  read;  for  people 
very  often  take  refuge  in  derision  when  an  inward 
stinging  of  conscience  tells  them  they  ought  to 
blush. 

And  since  on  the  mothers  of  a  generation  depends 
much  of  its  future  glory,  it  lies  in  the  power  of  the 
mothers  of  ours  to  cultivate  in  their  boys  all  that 
Sir  Charles  Grandison's  dying  mother  so  proudly 
praises : 

"His  duty  to  his  father  and  to  me;  his  love  of 
his  sisters ;  the  generosity  of  his  temper ;  his  love 
of  truth ;  his  modesty,  courage,  benevolence,  steadi- 
ness of  mind,  docility,  and  other  great  and  amiable 
qualities,  by  which  he  gives  a  moral  assurance  of 
making  A  GOOD  MAN." 

Observe,  not  a  great  man,  a  clever  and  brilliant 
man,  a  prosperous  or  fortunate  man — simply  a  good 
man.  If  women  took  this  more  to  heart,  haply 
there  would  not  nowadays  be  so  many  sons  who 
wring  and  break  the  hearts  of  their  mothers. 

But  whether  or  no  tfilere  be  living  good  men,  a 
novel  with  a  good  man  so  nobly  depicted  therein  is 
in  itself  a  great  reality ;  for  an  abstract  truth  learn- 
ed from  fiction  is  often  a  clearer  and  more  absolute 


278  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

verity  than  a  mere  literal  fact.  As  a  reverent  or- 
thodox Christian  was  once  heard  to  say,  Christiani- 
ty would  be  none  the  less  true,  in  its  essence,  if  the 
whole  of  the  New  Testament  history  were  an  in- 
spired parable. 

So,  whether  or  not  he  is,  or  ever  can  be,  a  living 
possibility,  we  feel  that,  as  an  example  of  moral 
beautjr,  this  man  of  men  is,  according  to  the  well- 
known  phrase,  "riot  for  an  age,  but  for  all  time;" 
that,  in  spite  of  lengthinesses,  absurdities,  extrava- 
gances, some  belonging  to  the  period,  and  some  to 
the  author's  own  idiosyncrasy — this  history  is  val- 
uable and  veritable.  Hundreds  of  our  young  men 
and  maidens  who  stupefy  their  brains,  fire  their  all 
too  tindery  imaginations,  and  confuse  their  still  un- 
settled notions  of  right  and  wrong,  over  a  hetero- 
geneous mass  of  modern  novels,  would  be  none  the 
worse,  but  all  the  better,  for  hunting  out  this  old- 
fashioned  tale,  and  carefully  studying  the  character 
of  that  almost  forgotten  ideal  of  our  great-grand- 
mothers— Sir  Charles  Grandison. 


LOST.  279 


£o0t. 

LOOKING  over  the  Times'  advertisements,  one's 
eye  often  catches  such  as  the  following:  "Lost,  a 
Youth'7  (while  ships  and  schools  exist,  not  so  very 
mysterious);  " Missing,  an  Elderly  Gentleman"  (who 
has  apparently  walked  quietly  off  to  his  city-office 
one  morning,  and  never  been  heard  of  more) ;  or 
merely,  "Left  his  Home,  John  So-and-So,"  who, 
after  many  entreaties  to  return  thereto,  may  have 
the  pleasure  of  seeing,  by  succeeding  advertise- 
ments of  "Keward  Offered,"  whether  he  is  valued 
by  his  disconsolate  kindred  at  ten,  fifteen,  or  fifty 
pounds.  Other  "bits"  there  are  at  which  we  feel 
it  cruel  to  smile :  one,  for  instance,  which  appeared 
for  months  on  the  first  day  of  the  month,  saying, 
"If  you  are  not  at  home  by"  such  a  date,  "I  shall 
have  left  England  in  search  of  you ;"  and  proceed- 
ing to  explain  that  he  or  she  had  left  orders  for 
that  periodical  advertisement,  giving  also  addresses 
of  banker,  etc.,  in  case  of  the  other's  coming  home 
meantime — all  with  the  curiously  business-like,  and 
yet  pathetic  providing  against  all  chances  which 
rarely  springs  from  any  source  save  the  strongest 
attachment. 


280  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

All  newspaper  readers  must  have  noticed,  in  mys- 
terious accidents  or  murders,  what  numbers  of  peo- 
ple are  sure  to  come  forward  in  hopes  if  identify- 
ing the  unknown  "body."  In  a  late  case,  when  a 
young  woman  was  found  brutally  shot  in  a  wood, 
it  was  remarkable  how  many  came  from  all  parts 
of  the  country  to  view  the  corpse — persons  who 
had  missing  relatives  bearing  the  same  initials  as 
those  on  the  victim's  linen — parents  whose  daughter 
had  gone  to  service  and  then  been  entirely  lost  sight 
of — friends  with  a  friend  gone  to  meet  her  hus- 
band, and  embark  for  Australia,  but  who  had  never 
embarked  or  been  heard  of  again,  and  so  on,  all 
seeking  some  clew  to  a  mournful,  never-solved 
mystery. 

But  these  things  suggest  the  grave  reflection 
what  a  number  of  people  there  must  be  in  the 
world  who  are,  not  figuratively  or  poetically,  but 
literally,  "lost;"  who  by  some  means  or  other,  ac- 
cident, intention,  carelessness,  misfortune,  or  crime, 
have  slipped  out  of  the  home  circle,  or  the  wider 
round  of  friendship  or  acquaintanceship,  and  never 
reappeared  more ;  whose  place  has  gradually  been 
filled  up ;  whose  very  memory  is  almost  forgotten, 
and  against  whose  name  and  date  of  birth  in  the 
family  Bible — if  they  ever  had  a  family  and  a  Bible 
— stands  neither  the  brief  momentous  annotation 
"Married"  etc.,  nor  the  still  briefer,  and  often  much 
safer  and  happier  inscription  "Died" — nothing  save 


LOST.  281 

the  ominous,  pathetic  blank,  which  only  the  unveil- 
ed secrets  of  the  Last  Day  will  ever  fill  up. 

In  the  present  times,  when  every  body  is  running 
to  and  fro — when,  instead  of  the  rule,  it  is  the  ex- 
ception to  meet  with  any  untraveled  person — when 
almost  every  large  family  has  one  or  more  of  its 
members  scattered  in  several  quarters  of  the  civil- 
ized or  uncivilized  world — cases  such  as  these  must 
occur  often.  Indeed,  nearly  every  person's  knowl- 
edge or  experience  could  furnish  some.  What  a 
list  it  would  make!  —  worse,  if  possible,  than  the 
terrible  "List  of  Killed  and  Wounded"  which  dims 
with  pity  many  an  uninterested  eye,  or  the  "  List 
of  Passengers  and  Crew"  after  an  ocean  shipwreck, 
where  common  sense  forebodes  that  "missing"  must 
necessarily  imply  death — how  met,  God  alone 
knows! — yet,  for  the  last  comfort  of  survivors,  a 
safe,  sure,  and  speedy  death.  But  in  this  unwritten 
list  of  "lost,"  death  is  a  certainty  never  to  be  at- 
tained, not  even  when  such  certainty  would  be  al- 
most as  blessed  as  life  or  happy  return.  Perhaps 
even  more  blessed. 

For  in  these  cases  the  "lost"  are  not  alone  to  be 
considered.  By  that  strange  yet  merciful  contra- 
diction of  feeling  which  often  makes  the  reckless 
the  most  lovable,  and  the  froward  the  most  beloved, 
it  rarely  happens  that  the  most  Cain-like  vagabond 
that  wanders  over  the  face  of  the  earth  has  not 
some  human  being  who  cares  for  him — in  greater 


282  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

or  less  degree,  yet  still  cares  for  him.  Nor,  abjur- 
ing this  view  of  the  subject,  can  we  take  the  strictly 
practical  side  of  it  without  perceiving  that  it  is  next 
to  impossible  for  any  human  being  so  completely 
to  isolate  himself  from  his  species  that  his  life  or . 
death  shall  not  affect  any  other  human  being  in 
any  possible  way. 

Doubtless  many  persuade  themselves  of  this  fact, 
through  bravado  or  misanthropy,  or  the  thoughtless 
selfishness  which  a  wandering  life  almost  invariably 
superinduces.  They  maintain  the  doctrine  which, 
when  a  man  has  been  tossed  up  and  down  the  world, 
in  India,  America,  Australia,  in  all  sorts  of  circum- 
stances and  among  all  sorts  of  people,  he  is  natu- 
rally prone  to  believe  the  one  great  truth  of  life— 
"  Every  man  for  himself,  and  God  for  us  all."  But 
it  is  not  a  truth ;  it  is  a  lie.  Where  every  man  lives 
only  for  himself,  it  is  not  God,  but  the  devil — "  for 
us  all." 

It  is  worth  while,  in  thinking  of  those  who  are 
thus  voluntarily  "lost,"  to  suggest  this  to  the  great 
tide  of  our  emigrating  youth,  who  go — and  .God 
speed  them  if  they  go  honestly — to  make  in  a  new 
country  the  bread  they  can  not  find  here.  In  all 
the  changes  of  work  and  scene,  many  are  prone 
gradually  to  forget;  some  to  believe  themselves 
forgotten ;  home  fades  away  in  distance — letters 
grow  fewer  and  fewer.  The  wanderer  begins  to  feel 
himself  a  waif  and  stray.  Like  Diekens's  poor  Jo, 


LOST.  283 

he  has  got  into  a  habit  of  being  "  chivied  and  chiv- 
ied," and  kept  "  moving  on,"  till  he  has  learned  to 
feel  no  particular  tie  or  interest  in  any  body  or  any 
thing,  and  therefore  concludes  nobody  can  have 
any  tie  or  interest  in  him.  So  he  just  writes  home 
by  rare  accident,  when  he  happens  to  remember  it, 
or  never  writes  at  all — vanishes  slowly  from  every 
body's  reach,  or  drops  suddenly  out  of  the  world, 
nobody  knows  how,  or  when,  or  where,  nor  ever 
can  know,  till  the  earth  and  sea  give  up  their  dead : 

"But  long  they  looked,  and  feared,  and  wept, 

Within  his  distant  home, 
And  dreamed,  and  started  as  they  slept, 
For  joy  that  he  was  come." 

Alas !  how  many  a  household,  how  many  a  heart, 
has  borne  that  utterly  irremediable  and  intermin- 
able anguish,  bitterer  far  than  the  anguish  over  a 
grave,  which  Wordsworth  has  faintly  indicated  in 
The  Affection  of  Margaret  : 

"Where  art  thou,  my  beloved  son? 

Where  art  thou,  worse  to  me  than  dead? 
Oh,  find  me — prosperous  or  undone ! 

Or  if  the  grave  be  now  thy  bed, 
Why  am  I  ignorant  of  the  same, 
That  I  may  rest,  and  neither  blame 
Nor  sorrow  may  attend  thy  name  ? 

"  I  look  for  ghosts,  but  none  will  force 

Their  way  to  me.     Tis  falsely  said 
That  there  was  ever  intercourse 
Betwixt  the  living  and  the  dead, 


284  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

For  surely  then  I  should  have  sight 
Of  him  I  wait  for  day  and  night, 
With  love  and  longings  infinite." 

It  may  seem  a  small  lesson  to  draw  from  an  ag- 
ony so  great,  but  surely  one  can  not  too  strongly 
impress  upon  our  wandering  youth,  who  go  to  earn 
their  living  across  the  seas — in  the  Australian  bush, 
or  the  Canadian  forests,  or  the  greater  wildernesses 
of  foreign  cities  east  and  west,  that  they  ought, 
every  where  and  under  all  circumstances,  to  leave 
a  clew  whereby  their  friends  may  be  certain  to  hear 
of  them,  living  or  dead.  That  if  it  is  the  duty  of  a 
solitary  man  or  woman,  while  living,  so  to  arrange 
affairs  that  his  or  her  death  shall  cause  least  pain  or 
trouble  to  any  one  else,  surely  this  is  ten-fold  the 
duty  of  those  who  go  abroad — that,  whatever  hap- 
pens, they  may  be  to  those  that  love  them  only  the 
dead,  never  the  "  lost." 

Sometimes  under  this  category  come  persons  of 
totally  different  fate — and  yet  the  same — whose  true 
history  is  rarely  found  out  till  it  is  ended,  and  per- 
haps not  then — people  who  have  sprung  up  nobody 
knows  how,  who  have  nobody  belonging  to  them — 
neither  ancestors  nor  descendants — though  as  soon 
as  they  are  gone  hundreds  appear  to  claim  heirship 
with  them. 

Of  such  is  a  case  now  pending,  well  known  in 
the  west  of  Scotland,  when  the  "next  of  kin"  to  an 
almost  fabulous  amount  of  property  is  advertised 


LOST.  285 

for  by  government  once  in  seven  years,  and  where 
scores  of  Scotch  cousins  indefinitely  removed  peri- 
odically turn  up,  and  spend  hundreds  of  pounds  in 
proving,  or  failing  to  prove — for  all  have  failed 
hitherto — their  relationship  to  the  "dear  deceased" 
—an  old  gentleman  in  India,  who  neither  there  nor 
in  his  native  Scotland  had  a  single  soul  belonging 
to  him,  or  caring  to  "call  cousins"  with  him;  who, 
indeed,  had  never  been  heard  of  till  he  died,  worth 
a  million  or  so,  leaving  all  the  wealth  he  had  labor- 
ed to  amass  to — Nobody.  Truly  this  poor  solitary 
nabob  may  be  put  among  the  melancholy  record 
of  "lost," 

Similar  instances  of  fortunes,  greater  or  less, 
"going  a  begging"  for  want  of  heirs,  are  common 
enough — commoner  than  people  have  the  least  idea 
of.  Government  annually  pockets — very  honestly, 
and  after  long  search  and  patient  waiting — a  con- 
siderable sum,  composed  of  unclaimed  bank  divi- 
dends, and  real  and  personal  property  of  all  kinds, 
the  heir  or  heirs  to  which  it  is  impossible  to  find. 
Among  these,  the  amount  of  dead  sailors7  pay  is 
said  to  be  a  remarkable  item — thousands  of  pounds 
thus  yearly  lapsing  to  government,  because  all  the 
ingenuity  of  the  shipping-master,  into  whose  hands 
the  money  is  required  to  be  paid,  can  not  find  any 
heir  to  poor  departed  "Bill"  or  "Jack" — whose 
place  of  birth  has  likely  been  never  heard  of — who 
has  gone  under  so  many  aliases  that  even  his  right 


286  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

surname  is  scarcely  discoverable,  and  often  has 
lived,  died,  and  been  buried  as  simple  "Jack"  or 
"Bill,"  without  any  surname  at  all. 

This  indifference  to  an  hereditary  patronymic  is  a 
curious  characteristic  of  all  wanderers  of  the  lower 
class.  Soldiers,  sailors,  and  navvies  engaged  abroad, 
will  often  be  found  to  have  gone  by  half  a  dozen 
different  surnames,  or  to  have  allowed  their  original 
name  to  be  varied  ad  libitum,  as  from  Donald  to 
M 'Donald,  and  back  again  to  Donaldson,  possibly 
ending  as  O'Donnell,  or  plain  Don.  Frequently,  in 
engaging  themselves,  they  will  give  any  new  name 
that  comes  uppermost — Smith,  Brown,  Jones ;  or 
will  change  names  with  a  "  mate,"  after  the  German 
fashion  of  ratifying  the  closest  bond  of  friendship, 
thereby  producing  inextricable  confusion,  should 
they  chance  to  die,  leaving  any  thing  to  be  in- 
herited. 

Otherwise — of  course  it  matters  not — they  just 
drop  out  of  life,  of  no  more  account  than  a  pebble 
dropped  into  the  deep  sea.  And  yet  each  must 
have  had  parents,  may  have  had  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, might  have  had  wife  and  children,  and  all  the 
close  links  of  home.  Much  as  we  pity  those  who 
lose  all  these — the  bonds,  duties,  and  cares  which, 
however  heavy  sometimes,  are  a  "man's  greatest  safe- 
guard and  strength,  without  which  he  is  but  a  root- 
less tree,  a  dead  log  drifted  about  on  the  waters — 
still  more  may  we  pity  those,  in  all  ranks  and  posi- 


LOST.  287 

tions  of  life,  who  are  thus  "  lost" — not  in  any  dis- 
creditable sense,  perhaps  from  no  individual  fault, 
but  from  some  fatal  conjuncture  of  circumstances, 
or  from  being  "too  easy,"  "too  good,"  "nobody's 
enemy  but  their  own."  Still,  by  some  means  or 
other — God  help  them — they  have  let  themselves 
drop  out  of  the  chain  of  life  like  a  bead  dropped 
off  a  string,  and  are  "  lost." 

Equally  so  are  some,  of  whom  few  of  us  are  so 
happy  as  never  to  have  counted  any,  whom  the 
American  poet  Bryant,  already  quoted,  touchingly 
characterizes  as  "the  living  lost."  Not  the  fallen, 
the  guilty,  or  even  the  prodigal,  so  degraded  that 
only  at  the  gates  of  the  grave  and  from  One  Father 
can  he  look  for  that  forgiveness  to  grant  which, 
"  while  he  was  yet  afar  off,  his  Father  saio  him" — not 
only  these,  but  others,  who  bear  no  outward  sign  of 
their  condition ;  whom  the  world  calls  fortunate, 
happy,  righteous  —  and  so  they  may  be  toward 
many,  yet  to  a  few,  familiar  with  their  deepest 
hearts,  knowing  all  they  were  and  might  have  been, 
still  be  irrevocably,  hopelessly,  "the  living  lost" — 
lost  as  utterly  as  if  the  grave  had  swallowed  them 
up,  mourned  as  bitterly  as  one  mourneth  for  those 
that  depart  to  return  no  more. 

Every  body  owns  some  of  these  kindred,  whom 
prosperity  has  taught  that  "  bluid"  is  not  "  thicker 
than  water;"  friends  who  have  long  ceased  to  own 
aught  of  friendship  but  its  name,  perhaps  even  not 


288  STUDIES   FROM   LIFE. 

that ;  lovers  who  meet  accidentally  as  strangers ; 
brothers  and  sisters  who  pass  one  another  in  the 
street  with  averted  faces — the  same  faces  which  a 
few  years  back  "cuddled"  cosily  up  to  the  same 
mother's  breast. 

These  things  are  sad — sad  and  strange — so  strange 
that  we  hardly  believe  them  in  youth,  at  least  not 
as  possible  to  happen  to  us ;  and  yet  they  do  hap- 
pen, and  we  are  obliged  to  bear  them  —  obliged  to 
endure  losses  worse  than  death,  and  never  seem  as 
if  we  had  lost  any  thing — smilingly  to  take  the 
credit  of  possessions  that  we  know  are  no  longer 
ours,  or  quietly  to  close  accounts,  pay  an  honorable 
dividend,  cheat  nobody,  and  sit  down  honest  beg- 
gars— but  the  crash  is  over !  Most  of  us — as  at  the 
end  of  the  year  we  are  prone,  morally  as  well  as 
arithmetically,  to  calculate  our  havings  and  spend- 
ings,  and  strike  the  balance  of  our  property — are 
also  prone  —  and  it  may  be  good  for  us  too  —  to 
linger  a  little  over  the  one  brief  item,  "Lost." 

But  in  all  good  lives,  even  as  in  all  well-balanced, 
prudent  ledgers,  this  item  is  far  less  heavy,  in  the 
sum-total,  than  at  first  appears — ay,  though  therein 
we  have  to  reckon  deaths  many,  partings  many,  in- 
fidelities and  estrangements  not  a  few;  though,  if 
we  be  not  ourselves  among  the  list  of  the  lost,  we 
have  no  guaranty  against  being  numbered  among 
that  of  the  sorrowful  losers. 

The  most  united  family  may  have  to  count  among 


LOST.  289 

its  members  one  "black  sheep,"  pitied  or  blamed, 
and  by  a  few  lingeringly  loved,  returning  at  inter- 
vals, generally  to  every  body's  consternation  and 
pain,  at  last  returning  no  more.  The  faithfulest 
of  friends  may  come  one  day  to  look  in  his  friend's 
face,  and  detect  there  something  new  and  strange, 
which  he  shrinks  from  as  from  an  unholy  spirit 
which  has  entered  and  possessed  the  familiar  form. 
The  fondest  and  best  of  mothers  may  live  to  miss, 
silently  and  tearlessly,  from  her  Christmas  -  table, 
some  one  child,  who  she  knows,  and  knows  that 
all  her  other  children  know,  is  more  welcome  in 
absence  than  in  presence,  whom  to  have  laid  sinless 
in  a  baby's  coffin,  and  buried  years  ago,  would  have 
been  as  nothing — nothing. 

Yet  all  these  things  must  be,  and  we  must  bear 
them,  that  in  the  mysterious  working  of  evil  with 
good  we  may  come  out  purified  as  with  fire.  The 
comfort  is,  that  in  its  total  account  of  gains  and 
losses,  every  honest  and  tender  soul  will  find  out, 
soon  or  late,  that  the  irremediable  catalogue  of 
the  latter  is,  we  repeat,  far  lighter  than  at  first 
seems. 

For  who  are  the  "lost?"  Not  the  dead,  who 
"rest  from  their  labors,"  and  with  whom  to  die  is 
often  to  be  forever  beloved.  Not  the  far  away,  who, 
keeping  and  kept  in  fond  remembrance,  are  often 
nearer  than  those  who  sit  at  hearth  and  board  be- 
side us.  Not  even  the  temporarily  estranged ;  for 
N 


290  STUDIES  FROM   LIFE. 

faith  and  patience  will  often  bring  them  back  again, 
and  teach  us 

"  How  like  a  new  gift  is  old  love  restored ; 
How  seems  it  richer,  though  the  ver^  same." 

Never  need  those  fear  to  be  either  lost  or  losers 
who,  in  the  words  of  our  English  Prayer-book, 
can  pray — and  pray  together — that  "amid  all  the 
chances  and  changes  of  this  mortal  life,  our  hearts 
may  surely  there  be  fixed  where  true  joys  are  to 
be  found" — where,  whatever  may  be  the  "  tongue 
of  men  or  of  angels"  that  we  shall  have  learned  to 
speak  with,  then  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  there 
shall  be  in  it  no  such  word  as  "fostf." 


THE  END. 


BY  CONSTANCE  F.  WOOLSOJST. 

JUPITER  LIGHTS.     16mo,  Cloth,  $1  25. 
EAST  ANGELS.     16rno,  Clotb,  $1  25. 
ANNE.     Illustrated.     16mo,  Clotb,  $1  25. 
FOR  THE  MAJOR.     16mo,  Clotb,  $1  00. 
CASTLE  NOWHERE.     16mo,  Clotb,  $1  00. 
RODMAN  THE  KEEPER.     16mo,  Clotb,  $1  00. 


There  is  a  certain  bright  cheerfulness  in  Miss  Woolson's  writing 
which  invests  all  her  characters  with  lovable  qualities.— Jewish  Advo- 
cate, N.  Y. 

Miss  Woolson  is  among  our  few  successful  writers  of  interesting 
magazine  stories,  and  her  skill  and  power  are  perceptible  iu  the  de- 
lineation of  her  heroines  no  less  than  in  the  suggestive  pictures  of 
local  life. — Jewish  Messenger,  N.  Y. 

Constance  Feuimore  Woolson  may  easily  become  the  novelist  lau- 
reate— Boston  Globe. 

Miss  Woolson  has  a  graceful  fancy,  a  ready  wit,  a  polished  style,  and 
conspicuous  dramatic  power ;  while  her  skill  in  the  development  of  a 
story  is  very  remarkable.— London  Life. 

Miss  Woolson  never  once  follows  the  beaten  track  of  the  orthodox 
novelist,  but  strikes  a  new  and  richly-loaded  vein,  which  so  far  is  all 
her  own  ;  and  thus  we  feel,  on  reading  one  of  her  works,  a  fresh  sen- 
sation, and  we  put  down  the  book  with  a  sigh  to  think  our  pleasant 
task  of  reading  it  is  finished.  The  author's  lines  must  have  fallen  to 
her  in  very  pleasant  places ;  or  she  has,  perhaps,  within  herself  the 
wealth  of  womanly  love  and  tenderness  she  pours  so  freely  into  all 
she  writes.  Such  books  as  hers  do  much  to  elevate  the  moral  tone  of 
the  day — a  quality  sadly  wanting  in  novels  of  the  time. — Whitehall 
Review,  London. 

PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

J0SP  The  above  works  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part  of  the 
United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS. 

THE  QUALITY  OF  MERCY.     A  Novel.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50. 
AN  IMPERATIVE  DUTY.     A  Novel.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  00. 

THE    SHADOW    OF   A    DREAM.     A  Story.     12mo,  Cloth, 
$1  00;  Paper,  60  cents. 

A  HAZARD  OF  NEW  FORTUNES.     A  Novel.     12mo,  Cloth, 

2  vols.,  $2  00;  Paper,  Illustrated,  $1  00. 

AXNIE   KILBURN.     A  Novel.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50;  Paper, 

75  cents. 

APRIL   HOPES.     A  Novel.     12mo,  Cloth,  $1  50;  Paper,  75 
cents. 

MODERN   ITALIAN   POETS.     Essays  and  Versions.     With 
Portraits.     12ino,  Half  Cloth,  $2  00. 

CRITICISM   AND   FICTION.      With  Portrait.     12mo,  Cloth, 

Ornamental,  $1  00. 

A  BOY'S  TOWN.     Illustrated.     Post  8vo,  Cloth,  Ornamental, 

$1  25. 

THE   MOUSE-TRAP,  AND    OTHER   FARCES.     Illustrated. 

$1  00. 

A   LITTLE   SWISS   SOJOURN.      Illustrated.      32mo,  Cloth, 
Ornamental,  50  cents. 

A  LETTER  OF  INTRODUCTION.    Illustrated.    S2mo,  Cloth, 
Ornamental,  50  cents. 

THE  ALBANY  DEPOT.     A  Farce.    Illustrated.    32mo,  Cloth, 

Ornamental,  50  cents.    : 

THE  GARROTERS.     A  Farce.     32mo,  Cloth,  50  cents. 


PUBLISHED  BY  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 

lj@r  The  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part 
of  the  United  States,  Canada,  or  Mexico,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


I 


